City of Sorrows
by Kagmi-Cron
Summary: The battle for Gotham's soul has a new player. When the Joker breaks out of Arkham, he finds himself at odds with a powerful newcomer known as the Riddler. As the forces of order and chaos clash over Gotham, can those trapped between them hope to survive?
1. Chapter 1

Coauthors: Kagmichiru and DracoCron

Standard disclaimer: None of the characters belong to us, except possibly Whisper.

* * *

Harvey Dent gazed in frustration at Batman. The man was so close, so vulnerable, and yet... so untouchable. He was without his gun, and he could not approach the dark knight without instantly losing...the man was untouchable. Batman was in the same predicament; neither could approach the other without forfieting their own life. Dent sighed and tossed his coin to the ground in acknowledgement.

"Stalemate."

Hearing the word yet again, the man watching the screen smiled slightly and leaned back in his comfortable chair. It was Edward Nigma's one guilty pleasure, this custom chess program with the kings being animated 3D models of Batman and Harvey Dent—and the queens being lightly or darkly tinted models of Rachel Dawes, depending on the side. But it fascinated him to see these two men, one of them brilliant by most human standards, the other impeccably orderly, to be pitted against each other on this field of utterly logical battle. It reminded him of who he himself was... and the unlimited potential others would have, once he led them into his enlightened way of thinking.

There could be no higher fate.

The man idly twirled his silver ring—double-sided, each side decorated with an enigmatic curl, a dotless questionmark turned on its side— as he contemplated starting another game. On the one hand, he knew it was pointless: since he had installed the chess simulator in his supercomputer years ago, neither he nor the computer had ever been able to defeat the other. On the other hand, it was a reassuring thing to do once in a while, to remind himself his that skills remained in top condition; if he could consistently match the computer at its own game, he was sure that his logic could consistently trump his human opponents at nearly anything he put his mind to... at least until they stopped relying on transient emotional "reasoning" to solve their problems and tried to match his logic. It was the best he could hope for the future.

He was startled out of his reverie by the opening of the door on the far side of the room. He quickly relaxed, remembering that only one person could even open the door without suffering a painful death. Well, perhaps Batman could have managed it, but Nigma wasn't expecting a visit from him anytime soon. Sadly, the vigilante was now the subject of a manhunt, wanted for allegedly murdering five people.

Nigma didn't believe a word of the accusations. It was a shame, really, that the Batman refused to use lethal force—an utter failure to come to the logical conclusion, like so many others seen in Gotham's broken justice system. But if the Batman _were_ a killer, it would have become obvious long before the oddly scattered killings of five people connected to the death of Rachel Dawes.

_Rachel Dawes…_her death was the only common factor between the victims. Nigma had puzzled long and hard over who could be responsible for the murders—nothing about them fit the style or character of the Batman, but who else could there be?

There could be Harvey Dent: a powerful lawyer kidnapped at the height of his career, surviving only at the cost of his beloved fiancee's death. How must Dent have felt, Nigma wondered, to know that Rachel Dawes had died in his place? Angry enough to murder those responsible? Angry enough to later kill himself?

"Master?" his reverie was interrupted again. His faithful assistant stood behind him now, her posture unassuming.

He shook himself again. "Ah, Whisper. Is it done?"

"To the extent of my abilities. I believe that conventional forensics officers will be... confused, to say the least."

He chuckled in approval. "Excellent. And if I know them, they'll focus on the wrong question... and find out how it was done long past the time when knowing who did it was helpful for them. It's only too bad you couldn't bring me Maroni's head... I would have liked to see how much space his brain cavity really had inside it."

Maroni. A perfect example of the name fitting the character. How could a man so dull, so shortsighted, have ever risen to such power? Death was practically a blessing for him. Now his assets could be channeled into far more constructive outlets.

Of course, he reflected, sometimes the name had to be changed to fit the character... he himself was proof of that.

"You may go, Whisper. You've performed well."

The assassin smiled slightly, and bowed low. "Thank you, Master." She departed as silently and unceremoniously as she had come.

Alone again, the man reached down to the pocket on his green jacket and removed his purple domino mask. He did love to watch the sun rise... it spoke to him of hope, and the bright future of humanity under his own gentle wing. He donned the mask and walked over to his tremendous bay window, his eyes protected from the light by the mask's filtering effects.

Edward Nigma wondered what the world would call him, when it was his. He could spend ages thinking of all kinds of overly dramatic titles, but he believed that he would remain perfectly content should they choose to call him by the other name he'd chosen, and earned, himself.

The Riddler.

* * *

At Arkham Asylum, everything was business as usual. It was early afternoon; lunch had just been dispensed, and prisoners' medications along with it. Prisoners were at their most sedate, and in the staff quarters, Arkham employees could afford to let their hair down and eat their own lunches. They laughed and talked, discussing their stranger cases with the lighthearted humor that all employees eventually developed after spending their days working with twisted minds.

Harleen Quinnzel had always been a little bit of an exception to the rule. The youngest employee as well as the most recent transfer, she took her cases more seriously than the others—too seriously for her own good, she'd sometimes been told. But she was young and bright and charming, and she could laugh things off as well as anyone else when she needed to, so the other Arkham employees humored her. Intrigued by her professional drive, they gave her the cases she wanted—and three months ago to the day, they had given her The Joker.

They still didn't have a name for him. He'd given them nearly a dozen by now, one to go with each story of his past, and the general consensus was that none of them were true. If the truth was hiding somewhere in there among the falsehoods, it was so hopelessly confused that he may as well have maintained a stony silence.

The disturbing thing about the Joker, Harleen Quinnzel thought, was that he made you believe everything he said. Because _he _believed them himself, when he told them to you, and he spoke with such conviction, such deeply repressed emotion, that you knew that whatever he was saying made perfect sense to him even if it didn't to the outside world.  
The Joker's recent suicide attempt had shaken all of Arkham for a few days. The other employees soon laughed it off, just as they did with everything else, but Harleen couldn't. She'd been talking to him for months, and she knew, better than any of the rest of them, what he meant by it. She knew what she had to do.

She ate with the other asylum employees for the obligatory amount of time, eating half her sandwich and very carefully leaving the other half, unfinished, to imply that she intended to return. She excused herself to get something from her coat pocket in the front hall where they left their bags for check-in. What she got from her coat pocket was a key she'd illegally copied and a syringe full of sedative, which she used on the guard behind the front hall desk while his back was turned. With a whispered apology she carefully lowered his head onto the desk. If anyone found him, it would appear he'd be asleep on the job. But by that time they'd have plenty of other stuff to pin on her, so confessing to knocking out the guard would be an easy thing to do.

What she'd really come for was the gun on his belt. The Joker had spent most of the previous weeks of therapy discussing with her life and death. He went on long, strange, pleading tangents, discussing the cruelty of lifelong confinement, the fact that he didn't deserve to live anyway, the fact, which Harleen reluctantly corroborated, that he was incurable and he'd never be safe for the general public as long as he was alive. The tangents had a clear message to them, however incoherent they may have seemed—his aim had been to convince her that escape or death were the only two possibilities for him in the end. His suicide attempt indicated that he'd made that choice, he'd decided to die, and the idiots who ran this asylum had _stopped_ him—

Harleen slipped the gun into the pocket of her labcoat. She didn't want to think about what she was about to do, didn't want to think about it at all, but it was the only humane course of action. The only safe one, the only logical choice…

She imagined she could feel the eyes of the other prisoners on her as she walked towards his cell. She imagined that they detected something different in her step, that they knew something was about to happen. It was a ridiculous notion, she knew, self-induced paranoia, but it was convincing. She found herself glancing to either side repeatedly as she walked the length of the corridor.

The Joker was lounging when she opened the door, stretched out on the cot with his bandaged wrists folded behind his head. Apparently half-asleep, he opened one eye and regarded her lazily. "How ya doin', Harl?"

Harleen closed the door behind her and just stood against it for a moment, looking at him. _Humane_, she reminded herself. _This is humane, the only kind thing to do…_

But suddenly it didn't look that way anymore. He didn't look tormented, desperate or accusing, as he had when he went off during therapy sessions, ranting against the world. If anything, he looked mildly expectant. _He couldn't have known I was coming—he couldn't! Could he?_

His single eye, brown in a face that was surprisingly ordinary without the makeup, strayed to her coat pocket. She still had her hand in it, she realized. Could he see the outline of the gun?

He licked his lips, that compulsive habit of his, and turned to give her his full attention.

_He's waiting, he's waiting on me, damn it! Why doesn't he say something?_ Harleen realized she was very pale and trembling.

"I've gotta say, Harl," the man on the bed drawled, stretching lazily. "I didn't think ya had it in you. Always seemed like such a softie, such a bleeding heart, you know? Don't get me wrong, you're doing the right thing, but I never would have thought…" he trailed off, leaving all sorts of maddening suggestions of his faith in her hanging in the air.

"_You_ tried to kill yourself!" she practically screeched at him, angry now. "_You_ started it! They _stopped_ you, so I came to _finish—_"

He smacked his lips again and shook his head. "Harley, you're never gonna shoot me. You don't have it in you." He sat up and held out a hand, gesturing. "Give it here and let me show you how it's done."

She closed her hand around the gun in her pocket, lifted it out and pointed it at him. "You're crazy," she quipped, and giggled. The absurdity of him thinking she'd _give_ him a gun, when she came here to kill him with it…

He sat where he was and rolled his eyes. "Sure, I'm crazy. You're the one who came here with a gun to kill me, and _I'm_ the crazy one."

"You wanted this," she almost giggled hysterically, well aware that she was stalling. "This was _your_ idea, you wanted to be—"

And without seeming to move he was on top of her, wrenching the gun from her grasp without difficulty and pinning her to the cell wall. "I'll have to thank you for this someday, Harley." He twisted her around and a minute later held her against him in a vice grip with the gun's barrel pressed to her temple. He smiled down at her, the eeriest grin she'd seen on his face since the first day they brought him in.

"And now," he murmured, "we make our exit."

* * *

More coming very soon! Feedback is appreciated. This is our first run at coauthoring, and we're trying to remain true to the characters of The Dark Knight.


	2. Chapter 2

Coauthors: Kagmichiru and DracoCron

Standard disclaimer: None of the characters belong to us, except possibly Whisper.

* * *

Police Commissioner James Gordon emerged from the green limousine at the entrance to the new headquarters of the corporation known as Nigma Technologies. Ordinarily such transportation would never have been his style—but the man who had requested this meeting had insisted on sending a chaffeur. Edward Nigma was a mystery—Gordon was not even certain as to why he wished to meet with him, but the meeting had seemed a good opportunity to investigate this new, powerful arrival to Gotham.

Gordon approached the building, a 40-story skyscraper that appeared unremarkable from the outside. That was almost a surprise, after the ostentatious ride. As he approached the sliding glass doors, a smiling Asian woman stepped out to meet him.

"Mr. Gordon? A pleasure to meet you. I'm Miss Lieng, I'm here to take you to Nigma's meeting."

Gordon blinked and shook her hand, wondering at the woman's impeccable timing.

"Mr. Nigma is very careful about our building's security," she explained offhandedly, punching a nine-digit code into the pad by the glass doors. "We have some sensitive government contracts, so Mr. Nigma is keen to avoid any undocumented guests."

The doors opened in response to her code, and Gordon wondered what they were really made of. A man who put security codes on his building's main entrance hardly seemed likely to use simple glass as a building material.

The lobby proved to be richly appointed, every bit as much as the green limosine. Following Miss Lieng's quick stride, he didn't have time to look around in detail, but he noted a good deal of green marble and red carpeting.

_A security code _and_ luxurious decorations for a first-floor lobby? _This building's designer clearly had strange tastes, and a lot of money to burn.

Inside the elevator, Gordon further baffled. Instead of having floor buttons, or any type of floor indication, there was another keypad into which Lieng typed another passcode. The elevator began to rise, and Gordon could not shake uneasiness at the feeling that a passenger would have no idea what floor he ended up on. He wondered, vaguely, if that was some sort of safety violation. Probably better not to ask and alienate Nigma's secretary before he'd even met the man.

The elevator slid smoothly to a halt, and Miss Lieng stepped out ahead of Gordon.

"Mr. Gordon, I must ask you to watch your step in this hallway. This is a high-security area, and Mr. Nigma is…very careful to avoid unwanted guests. Follow where I step, please.

_Is she serious? _Gordon wondered, but nodded. He didn't particularly want to defy the secretary's orders and set off any alarms. The floor was red tile, and some of the tiles were marked with a green question mark; these, Gordon noted somewhat uneasily, were the ones Lieng appeared to be avoiding. He did likewise.

"I take it Mr. Nigma doesn't invite many visitors?" he asked, somewhat ironic.

"Very few, sir. He only invites people here whom he trusts."

"Ahh." Gordon nodded, unsure if this was meant as a compliment to him.

They moved down a hallway lined with nondescript doors, and Gordon found himself wondering what was behind all of them. Executive offices, routine enough no doubt, but in a place with tiles you couldn't step on…who knows?

"This is the conference room," said Lieng, as they finally entered a set of ornate double doors at the end of the hall. "Please be seated and make yourself comfortable. Mr. Nigma will be with you shortly."

Commissioner Gordon did as she bade him. The conference room itself was a puzzle; the walls were a delicate lavender, which seemed reasonable enough, but the long table was covered with a green felt that didn't match it particularly well. Wondering vaguely about Nigma's sense of color and style, Gordon sat down in one of the chairs to wait for his host to arrive.

Edward Nigma…Gordon wondered for perhaps the dozenth time if the name was a false one. Or perhaps he'd legally changed it at some point in his past—Gordon's personal curiousity had been unable to turn up much at all about Nigma's past. None of his origins seemed to be readily available, not even the place he was born. It was peculiar, Gordon thought, but nothing illegal. That seemed to be the general rule with this man.

From what Gordon had been able to find out, Nigma was an upwardly mobile inventor who'd acquired several other technology companies through mergers and other such deals. He now owned a truly impressive conglomerate; not as monolithic as Wayne Enterprises, and since relocating to Gotham, it was now the second most powerful technology firm based in the city. It was rumored that Nigma and Wayne Industries would soon be doing business; the financial papers had been speculating for months about how such interaction could affect stock prices.

But it was Nigma's apparent political ambitions that interested Gordon most. He'd first started keeping an eye on the man after rumors surfaced that he planned on running for political office; those rumors had since been confirmed, in a public message by Nigma broadcast to the citizens of Gotham on prime time television announcing his candidacy for mayor against the encumbent Garcia. It was odd, Gordon thought, that the man would relocate his company here immediately in advance of the mayoral election. And then, shortly after his arrival, shortly before the start of his speeches on peace, justice, and a brighter Gotham—mob leaders started dying. Nigma offhandedly attributed the murders to infighting, supposing that the mob leaders were trying to place themselves in a more favorable position in anticipation of a crackdown on crime stemming from a potential Nigma mayoral term. To Gordon, it didn't add up.

Publicly, Nigma's popularity was meteoric. No one in the media saw sufficient evidence to speculate that Nigma was responsible for murder—even Gordon admitted that the theory sounded a bit paranoid. Gordon's own police department was especially struck by the Nigma craze; the promise of a mayor who would be tougher on crime, combined with general donations of technology by Nigma Corp., gave him a very favorable image among the cops. In a way, he seemed to be stepping perfectly into the void created by the tragic death of Harvey Dent—with the new D.A., in fact, being one of his biggest supporters.

Gordon merely worried that the parallel might be _too_ close, and his visit thus far to Nigma Corp. had not reassured him. Harvey Dent's descent into madness and murder was still not publicly known—and Gordon prayed that his decision to hide those facts was the right one.

The door slid open again, and a man who could only have been Edward Nigma stepped through it. He wore a green suit—normal enough, except for the color—and the more unusual matching bowler hat which had become his trademark, seen by many as a lovable quirk. And he still wore his domino mask—purple rather than green, with a fine white mesh completely obscuring his eyes. Reports were that the man had been injured, an accident which left his eyes oversensitive, and that the mask was necessary for him to have normal vision…Gordon didn't like it.

But Nigma smiled warmly and extended his hand, such a hearty greeting that Gordon almost forgot about the mask. "Commissioner," he greeted Gordon, "I'm so pleased to finally meet you in person."

Gordon returned the smile and the hearty handshake, and found himself struggling not to be taken in by the man's aura of sincerity. And he didn't want to appear hostile, either… "Mr. Nigma! I'd been hoping for an opportunity to meet you, as well. Although, I have to say, I was a bit…puzzled, by your invitation. You invited me in a personal capacity rather than as the head of the Gotham police department?"

"Yes, I did," said Nigma, sitting down in a chair opposite Gordon. Gordon followed suit and sat down. "I wouldn't want to ask the police department to take an official stance on my candidacy for mayor of Gotham. But you, personally, Commissioner…frankly, I was hoping to court your vote."

Gordon blinked. "Me, personally? How is that different from the endorsement of the police Commissioner?"

Nigma shrugged and smiled apologetically. "It isn't, I admit. A mere matter of semantics. But I didn't want to seem too presumptuous."

Gordon sat back and folded his arms, unconvinced.

Nigma sat back and appeared to evaluate Gordon from behind the white mesh of the mask. When he finally spoke, he chose his words carefully: "I see that you are not a man who prefers lies to the truth, so I'll be frank with you, Commissioner. You know as well as I do that Mr. Garcia's support has dwindled over the past two years. With the whole Batman fiasco and the Joker's reign of terror happening on his watch…to be blunt, you and I both know he does not stand a good chance of reelection if he runs against me."

Gordon sat back and sighed. "I'm sorry, Mr. Nigma, but endorsing you would make it seem as though I were speaking for all of the Gotham police department. I can't do that."

Nigma raised his eyebrows. "Can't you, Commissioner? I understand that the majority of your officers share my opinion that Garcia is not what this city needs for the coming term."

"Yes, Mr. Nigma, I'm certain. I'm flattered that you'd consider me influential enough to ask, but I simply can't take an official position on the matter."

Nigma pursed his lips slightly, but he nodded good-naturedly enough. "As you wish, Commissioner. I certainly wouldn't want to undermine the police department's… faith in our current leadership." He pushed his seat away from the table. "While you're here, Commissioner, is there anything else I can do for you?"

Gordon, rose from his seat and regarded Nigma carefully. "Just one thing. I can see that you mean well, Mr. Nigma, and that as mayor you intend to make this city as close to perfect as you can. But that's not an easy fight; let it consume you. I've seen that happen to quite a few good men, and the results have never been…attractive."

Nigma smiled again with genuine warmth. "Thank you for your concern, Commissioner." He rose from his seat as well, shaking Gordon's hand in parting. "I promise you, I'm watching myself very closely."

Gordon smiled back, thinking again how strange that smile seemed on the masked face. "Good man," he enthused. He turned to go, but Nigma stopped him with a raised finger.

"There is one thing I'd like to know from you as well, Commissioner."

Gordon stopped, instantly suspicious again. "Oh?"

"Who really committed the murders Batman is accused of?"

Gordon stared, opened his mouth and then closed it again. "What…what would make you say that?"

Nigma's smile had changed into something more like a smirk. "Come now. I've read quite a bit about Gotham's trademark vigilante. If he were going to commit murder, he could have killed the Joker three or four times over. So tell me. Surely there must be other suspects?"

Gordon sighed and turned back towards Nigma. "I wish I could tell you, Mr. Nigma. I really do. But I'm not at liberty to say at this time."

Nigma nodded, his smirk dissolving into a softer expression of amusement. "As you wish, then. Miss Lieng is waiting outside to escort you."

* * *

The hideout was still abandoned, empty, undiscovered and unused since its master had left it for a padded cell in Arkham Asylum. Empty…his hideout, empty. Burned-out, neglected, uncared for—just the way he liked it. So he still had the best seat in the house to watch Gotham City undetected.

The Joker paced the room designated as his office, admiring the view of glittering lights through the hole in the wall that had never been rebuilt after the building fire. Behind him, the gang members he'd hired were bustling around, moving in the materials he'd requested. He'd already had them buy makeup for him—which had drawn more than a few raised eyebrows among the new recruits, but no one dared question their crazy boss about his dressing habits.

It had been easy to hire the thugs off the streets, despite his lack of material wealth. Apparently a few months in Arkham had done very little to tarnish the aura of invincibility he'd left behind, and every young, ambitious, naïve gangster wanted in on the Joker's next reign of terror.

What absolute fools they all were.

He heard a nervous squeal as someone dropped something in the background. That was Harley, poor Harley, back there trying to make herself useful to ward off her guilty conscience. He couldn't quite blame her for being shaken; a kidnapping and a car accident in one day would be a little trying for anyone's sanity.

He chuckled and muttered aloud to himself: "Trying her sanity—we wouldn't want that, would we?"

But there were more important things to worry about for now. He turned away from the view to check his thugs' progress in setting up his office. The table and the television had been set up, and the stack of tapes beside it that presumably contained recordings of news broadcasts from the previous 24 hours. He wanted to see what they were saying about him, and pick up on anything interesting happening in the city in general.

"So I hear Maroni kicked it," he commented, pulling a folded newspaper clipping from his pocket and brandishing it.

"Yeh," one of the young thugs grunted, setting down another stack of newspapers. "Third mob boss this week. Somebody's takin' 'em all down."

The Joker's eye's widened in mock surprise. "_Three_? Good gravy, are we certain the Batman hasn't gone lethal?" That, he reflected, would almost be disappointing—to have the Batman refuse to kill him and then find out Batsy had become murderous while he was away…

The young man shrugged. "Nah. Doesn't have any of his trademarks."

The Joker had to agree with that assessment. The last murder had been the biggest—Maroni, one of the most lucrative mobsters, who had been immune even from the legal schemes of Harvey Dent. And whoever killed him had dissected his organs and then glued them back together in chaotic fashion. He almost had to admire the killer's style. Almost.

The slight problem was, whoever was responsible seemed to have no sense of chaos. There had been no robberies, no threats, no attempts on the lives of civilians. The perpetrator seemed determined to clean up the streets of Gotham. And that would never do.

The Joker gestured for Harley and the thugs to take seats around the conference table—and laughed inwardly as he watched them scramble to obey.

"What should we look at first, Harley?" he quipped, his hand hovering over the jumble of tapes. The blonde was silent, fixing him with a steely blue-eyed glare. She looked slightly like a drowned rat in the oversized clothes they'd had to scrounge up for her.

_Poor thing, pretends to be mad at me, but she still feels the need to make herself useful…_

His hand alighted on one particularly interesting looking tape. This one was labeled in sloppy handwriting: "Riddler."

"Riddler?" he asked aloud, speaking to no one in particular. "What's that mean?"

He sensed his thugs exchanging glances across the table. "He's a weird one," one of them said. "Keeps sending recorded messages into the news networks. That one's from earlier today."

Intrigued, the Joker raised his eyebrows and inserted the tape. 'The

Riddler'…recorded messages…had he inspired copycats?

The image that filled the screen was was disappointing. The man on the screen wore a green suit and matching bowler hat, and a small purple mask that completely obscured his eyes with some sort of mesh. He appeared to be broadcasting from an office, stylish, neat, and sophisticated.

"My fellow citizens of Gotham," the man said, in a voice that was ingratiatingly warm and friendly. "Once again I am honored to greet you in my address. As you may know, criminal kingpin Salvatore Maroni was fatally poisoned two days ago. Although the loss of human life is always wasteful, the end of his reign will almost certainly lead to a brighter Gotham.

"This act, almost certainly perpetrated by rivals attempting to bolster their own power, speaks volumes to me about the changing character of the city. Now, the circumstances that led to their power are quickly decaying. Heroes both great and small are banding together to destroy their bases of power, and they respond by destroying each other. With opponents and circumstances such as these, how can we fail to triumph?"

"But we must not become overconfident. We must remain vigilant, and united behind the banner of the city, to ensure that such dark times do not come upon us again. My resources are considerable, and if you decide that I am not fit to lead you in these times, I will pledge them all to the defense and the power of your rightful leader. This is Edward Nigma, thanking you for watching."

The screen dissolved into static, and the Joker sat back in his seat. "Well that," he

declared, "was awful."

There was an uncomfortable silence around the table. The Joker chuckled. "Don't tell me you're all _afraid_ of this guy?"

"Well," one of them spoke up at length, "a lot of people think…he's been the one killin' the bosses…"

The Joker laughed again, this time uproariously. "Well of course, that much is

obvious. Let me ask you this, what the hell is _wrong_ with your mob bosses? Getting knocked off by a high-class business brat like _that_? Why hasn't anybody gone after him?"

One of the men threw up his hands. "Gone after him? You should see this guy's office—building's like a fortress, right in the middle of the city. He operates in public, so nobody can touch him. It'd be suicide for anybody who ordered a hit."

The Joker nodded, a slow grin creeping onto his face. He lowered his voice conspiratorially and glanced around at the faces of his henchmen. "Well I think it's time for us to send 'Mr. E. Nigma' a message."

* * *

More coming soon! Feedback is very much appreciated. This is shaping up to be a very long story.


	3. Chapter 3

Coauthors: Kagmichiru and DracoCron

Standard disclaimer: None of the characters belong to us, except possibly Whisper.

* * *

Bruce Wayne stared at one of the walls of his very white conference room, fighting off sleep. He had become almost comfortable with this persona of the naïve and irresponsible Bruce Wayne as a cover for his other identity as Batman. But today, despite the past few sleepless nights, he made a valiant effort to stay awake. Today he was meeting directly with Gotham City's most infamous newcomer, millionaire Edward Nigma.

As though on cue, the door of the conference room opened and a man stepped in, politely tentative. "Mr. Wayne?"

Bruce's head snapped up to look at the newcomer. He tried to play his groginess naturally, acting just a bit slow and just a bit out of it instead of the hyper-alert paranoia that his activities as Batman were breeding within him.

Of course, it didn't help that the newcomer was wearing a mask. White mesh and purple cloth obscured his eyes completely, giving his smile a vaguely inhuman caste. Bruce didn't like it at all.

"Ah, Mr Nigma?" he inquired, a little coolly. Of course it was hardly likely that anyone else would have this man's distinctive sense of style; most redheads would have avoided wearing a green suit, and most businessmen avoided bowler hats altogether. But Bruce supposed that millionaire inventors were allowed to be a little eccentric—and he himself wasn't exactly a model of normalcy. He half-rose to shake the man's hand and gestured for him to take a seat across the table.

"I am indeed," Nigma confirmed as he settled gracefully into a chair, "It is a pleasure to meet a like-minded man, sir."

Bruce nodded, careful not to allow his skepticism to show. '_Like minded,' are we? And we haven't even spoken yet…_

He took a deep breath and debated where to begin while Nigma watched him expectantly from behind the enigmatic purple mask. "I asked to meet with you," Bruce said at last with a slight frown, "because I'm a little confused by your business proposal. It…frankly, I don't see exactly what you're hoping to accomplish. Our board has discussed it, but I want to hear it from you. Exactly what sort of deal are you hoping to make with Wayne Enterprises?"

Nigma smiled, a broad, understanding smile, and nodded sympathetically. "I'm aware that my business models are a little unorthodox. The proposal is probably not as complicated as it sounds. I am, quite honestly, astonished by your company's proficiency in creating new products and the amount of resources available to you. My own company does well enough, but we still move in a 'smaller pond,' so to speak, market-wise, and I feel that it's growing restrictive. We'd like to expand our horizons, and we feel that Wayne Enterprises would be the ideal business partner with which to do so. To put it simply, sir, I want to merge Nigma Corp with the high-technology division of Wayne Enterprises. If I understand correctly, both our companies have a number of government contracts in the high-technology areas, so a pooling of our resources and expertise could be beneficial to both."

Bruce nodded slowly. He was following this so far, but there were still a few pieces of logic missing from the equation…

Nigma continued, seeming to have anticipated his thoughtstream. "I'm sure you're wondering, Mr. Wayne, what is in it for you and Wayne enterprises. Nigma Corp is a smaller and comparatively less affluent platform than your own company. However, I believe we have some…potentially useful ideas to bring to bear. I believe that Wayne Enterprise's backing is exactly what Nigma Corp needs to break into new market fields, and I believe Wayne Enterprises could profit substantially from some of the patents and prototypes Nigma Corp has developed."

Bruce sat back and allowed himself to look unconvinced. "Could you give me an example of one of these—er, prototypes?"

The other man smiled broadly again, this time with an almost conspiratorial air. "I was rather hoping you'd ask that, Mr. Wayne. One of my pet projects among our recent venture is a foray into android technology. You're familiar with the term, I assume?"

"Humanoid robots? Yes, I've heard of them…but isn't that the stuff of science fiction?" Bruce smiled slightly, thinking to himself how many of the items in his own possession were also thought to exist only in fiction…

"Well, up to this point they are. But we aim to change that in the near future." Nigma withdrew a folded paper from his pocket. "These are the plans for a system of self-adjusting gyroscopes we've recently devised to allow our robots to move quickly over uneven terrain. It's somewhat of a riddle—there's a component wrong in there, and I'll be interested to see if your engineers are able to identify and fix it. If they do, consider the plans to be a gift. There are more where this came from."

Bruce took the paper Nigma offered with genuine bewilderment. He was unsure what to think of this 'gift'—a show of unparalleled conceit, or was it proof of his goodwill?

Nigma smiled yet again. "So are you interested, Mr. Wayne?"

Bruce closed his eyes and massaged his temple. "What…what exactly is your proposal? How were you planning to merge the companies? Under whose ownership?"

"Under yours, Mr. Wayne. Your full ownership. I merely want…some measure of control over our merged entity's activities."

Wayne's eyebrows shot up. _Here it comes…_

"I want full control over who serves as the director of Wayne Industries," Nigma stated, folding his hands on the conference table pensievely. "In effect, I would be absorbing Wayne Industries into Nigma... but then handing all the benefits of ownership over to you. Monetarily, I ask only for a salary comparable to that of the director I'll be appointing. I'm in this for the intellectual possibilities, not the profit."

Wayne sat back and stared. This man was…either staggeringly altruistic, or dangerously deceptive. He honestly wasn't sure which to think.

"I assure you," Nigma added quickly, "one of the perks of working with a smaller company is that you know your employees better. And I know mine very well, Mr. Wayne. When—if—they recieve your backing, they'll work…unanticipated wonders."

Wayne leaned back in his chair, tapping his knuckles on the table in deep thought. "What is it you really want, Mr. Nigma?" he asked flatly. "Even if you were in control of all hiring practices in Wayne Industries, there's a hell of a lot of money you'd be missing out on.

Nigma chuckled. "Money? I have money, Mr. Wayne. I have plenty, and am unlikely to run out. That would take…a prodigious effort." He leaned back and Bruce wondered if his eyes were closed—it was impossible to tell behind the mask. "Do you remember the motto of my company, Mr. Wayne?" Nigma asked suddenly.

Wayne frowned slightly. "No."

"'Peace of the cosmos,' Mr. Wayne. It's what I and all of my workers strive for... a more peaceful and enlightened existence for all of humanity that we can reach. Money is nothing compared to that. And really, how much money can any individual possibly need? I'm only living for one man, not one hundred."

Wayne nodded and studied Mr. Nigma thoughtfully. "I... see. That's an admirable sentiment, Mr. Nigma. I will…consider your offer." He waved the piece of paper Nigma had offered playfully. "I'll be interested to see what my engineers can do with this."

Nigma nodded and smiled, seeming to return from his brief reverie to the present. "So will I, Mr. Wayne. Who knows—maybe they'll discover something new." He stood up and extended his hand again. "Call me when you reach a decision. I'll be eagerly awaiting word from you." Bruce reached out to shake it again, rising fully out of his seat this time.

Bruce stood where he was and watched Nigma leave, shaking his head inwardly. The man truly was a mystery.

* * *

The Joker chose a spot near the center of Gotham for his meeting. It was in a bad

part of town, guaranteeing that his quarry would be near—and that the Joker's own presence would go more or less unnoticed. It was the rooftop of a skyscraper, a mob-owned building, conspicuous in the low skyline of Gotham's poorer quarter.

The mobsters were curious enough, intrigued enough by his plan, to help with it. They had supplied the vital ingredient, a large floodlight. The Batman's symbol was cut out of cardboard to cast a shadow in the floodlight's beam. The Joker reflected with private amusement that just a few months ago, the mob would have done their level best to kill the Batman on sight. Now, in an ironic twist worthy of twisted Gotham, the Batman had become their protector against an even more dangerous vigilante who was willing to use lethal force.

The Joker stood by the lit floodlight, and waited. Nothing was assured with the Batman, but the Joker had a good feeling about tonight. He doubted his nemesis would be able to resist investigating his own symbol being broadcast from the top of a mob-owned building. And this would look great in the media, besides. The Joker chuckled to himself; he could see the headlines of tomorrow's paper: "Batman Buddy-Buddy With the Mob?" And Batman would be helpless to refute the speculation…

He did not hear so much as sense something pass over his head. A subtle change in air current, or the sound fluttering of fabric just below the threshhold of conscious perception—he turned around and to face the dark figure that had materialized behind him.

"You!" Batman grunted accusingly, in that hideously rasping voice of his.

The Joker took a step back and looked affronted. "_Me?_ I thought I was someone else!"

The Batman didn't laugh. He never did, always maintained that ridiculous stoic silence. And that just made everything better. He was the perfect straight man, a straight man in a cosmic joke that went way over his head.

"Why did you call me?" the Batman demanded, taking a step forward. The approach was meant to be menacing, but the Joker gleefully pranced further back, a few steps closer to the building's edge.

"It's quite simple, my dear Batman," he announced. "You and I now have a common enemy. Don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about! This little assassin of mobsters, this Riddler—he's mucking things up for the both of us. You," the Joker struck a tragic pose, "simply can't bear to watch the murders of poor, unsuspecting criminals. And I," the Joker perked up, offering a cheerful grin, "can't stand someone trying to clean the organized crime off _my_ streets. So I'll cut you a deal."

The Joker grinned as Batman snarled in disgust and started to lunge forward. His buttons were so easy to push. The Joker evaded his lunge, dancing along the edge of the building's roof, daring the Batman to make any sudden movements to push him over the edge. "Batman!" he exclaimed, looking injured. "I didn't invite you here to fight! Let's talk like reasonable men, shall we?"

Batman's grimace of disgust was evident even behind the mask. "What could you possibly have to offer me?" he spat.

The Joker licked his lips and giggled. "Well it just so happens," he pronounced in a leisurely drawl, "that I know where the Riddler's assassin will be tomorrow evening. And I can tell you, for a price."

That last line did it. The Batman lunged forward again, and the Joker kicked himself off the edge of the building. As he began his plummet, he heard Harley scream from her hiding place in the shadows. She'd given herself away, but oh well—he supposed he hadn't exactly prepared her for this part of the plan.

He came dangerously close to the ground this time, before the Batman's wire gun slowed his fall to a halt. He let his arms hang over his head and took the time to enjoy the upside-down view of the sleazier side of Gotham while the Batman took his time reeling him back up.

"Oh come on, that's no fun," the Joker pouted indigantly as he was dragged back onto the rooftop. "You're supposed to swoop down and catch me, all romantic-like." Harley was standing a few feet behind Batman, looking horrified and utterly uncertain of what to do. He grinned and winked up at her. The poor girl didn't understand quite yet that there was a profound point to his theatrics. Lesson 1: nothing illustrates the absurdity and irony of your enemy's convictions like throwing _yourself _into mortal danger and disregard the safety of innocents to save a murderer.

_Very much like you, my dear, dear Harley_. He felt a sudden wave of fondness for the woman, and knew he was being too hard on her. Slowly now, she was beginning to see the failure of the farcical logic. Attempting to kill him had been the first sign of it, and an impressive one at that.

But the Batman was not in as good a mood. Instead of pulling him upright, he pinned the Joker to the ground and brandished the blades that protruded from his armored wristguards. "Give me one good reason," he growled, "why I shouldn't haul you back to Arkham and have _them_ get it out of you?"

Joker laughed. "Batsy, you know interrogation doesn't work on me. And, uh, if you haven't noticed, that's my psychiatrist standing right behind you. The genius darling of Arkham, she was."

Batman turned, as the Joker had hoped he would, and saw that Harley was pointing a gun at his back and trembling.

_You wouldn't let him send me back to Arkham, would you, Harl? Not back to a fate worse than death, the fate you already rescued me from once…_It occurred to him that Harley, close as she was to the edge of comprehension, might well try to kill _him_ instead of the heavily armored Batman to save him from that fate. But no, she wouldn't. She wouldn't pull the trigger on either of them unless the Batman tried to move him, and that was not going to happen.

The Batman turned back to him, apparently mystified by they psychiatrist's loyalty to her captor. "What did you do to her?" he demanded.

The Joker shook his head and ran his tongue across his lips. "That's not important," he murmured, ready to get down to business now. "What is important is that our little E. Nigma's hit squad is going to be at 1239 Shark Avenue sometime between now and tomorrow night, probably rigging bombs in the basement. If you want to catch 'em and incriminate Nigma, this is the only chance you're gonna get. The mob won't cooperate with another setup if the first one fails, so make it good. Oh, and my price—my price is that you take this guy off the streets. Then it'll be just you, me, and the mob again—like the good old days!"

The Batman simply looked at the Joker for a long minute, a look of slow comprehension dawning on his face. It was beautiful to watch as the Batman realized the quandry laid out before him; cooperate with the Joker and the mob to save the lives of Gotham's most ruthless criminals, or allow a vigilante murderer to continue killing outside the law, effectively condoning the actions he himself refused to take. Play neatly along with the desires of the people he most despised, or betray his own moral code. They both knew that the Batman had no choice. The Joker started giggling again.

More in disgust than anything else, the Batman got off of him, as though he couldn't stand to touch the man for another minute. "Maybe I'll cooperate with your little setup," he growled. "Maybe I won't. But right now, you're coming with me to Arkham!"

The Joker moved at the same moment Batman did. Before Batman reached him to knock him unconscious, the Joker brandished the detonator from his pocket. "You don't have time to deliver me to Arkham, Batsy," he chided. "As of right now, you've got about ten seconds to stop this from hitting the ground and detonating the explosives in that apartment building across the street. Good luck." And before Batman finished processing what he'd just said, the Joker carelessly tossed the detonator over the building's edge.

Batman went after it so fast the Joker barely heard his cape flutter as he left. A little stiffly, the Joker got to his feet.

Harley stepped tenatively towards him. "I thought—" her lip was trembling and she wore a look of utter incomprehension. The Joker sighed and siezed her arm, pulling her towards the stairs. If only they had time to finish this little conversation on the spot…but no, it would have to wait. The Batman didn't waste time, and he had better things to do than getting captured…

* * *

More to come! Feedback is very much appreciated.


	4. Chapter 4

Coauthors: Kagmichiru and DracoCron

**Minerva's Cat: **Thanks for your faithful reviewing! No Gordon quite yet, but he's going to become very prominent in the next few chapters! We're just setting the scene for him. ;)

* * *

Bruce Wayne blinked and stared dismally into his morning coffee, willing his eyes to stay open and his joints to stop aching. Three hours of sleep just was not enough to cut it after staying out until 4am diffusing bombs and hunting drug lords.

The previous night's encounter haunted him. It had been like a nightmare, to see the Joker back on the street, makeup and all, as though nothing had ever happened to interrupt him. And it was far from reassuring that the rest of Gotham didn't even know he was alive. How and when, Bruce wondered, would the Joker reveal himself? A man like that would not stay under the radar forever, and the last thing Gotham needed now was for the Joker to start murdering civilians in spades, while there was a mayoral election going on and Batman was still on the run for murder…

Bruce groaned to himself and let his head fall into his hands. There were days when it really did seem like the entire city was going to hell.

Behind him, Alfred was bustling about his normal morning duties, cleaning, maintaining and restocking, routine tasks without which Batman/Bruce Wayne's dual existence would have been impossible. "You really must cut back on the drinking, Master Bruce," he commented wryly at the sound of the groan.

But for once, Bruce was in no mood for ironic conversation. "The Joker's back, Alfred."

There was absolute silence at this. Even the sounds of cleaning and organization ceased, as Alfred straightened and stared. "He…survived, then?"

Leaving his coffee untouched, Bruce stood up and began to pace. "Not a scratch on him, at least not that I could see. He called me last night—_called me_, used the bat symbol on top of a mob tower and just stood there, waiting for me to show up."

Sensing a matter of serious discussion ahead, Alfred lowered himself into one of the armchairs around the coffee table. "Called you, sir? Was it a setup?"

"That's the thing Alfred, it wasn't. It was just him and that psychiatrist—Harleen Quinnzel is the one he escaped with, I think? They didn't try to injure me. They…_he_ made me an offer."

Alfred could do nothing more than raise his eyebrows in consternation. "The Joker made you an offer?"

"He wants me to catch the assassin that's been killing mob leaders. He gave me the address and time of the next hit—tonight, actually. The mob's in on it. Seems like everyone's in on it. They're all just waiting for me to swoop in and remove the killer so they can get on with their…business." Bruce wrinkled his nose in disgust.

"Are you certain it's genuine, sir? Knowing the Joker, it may just as easily be a trap."

Bruce shook his head. "I don't think so, Alfred. If he wanted me dead, why didn't he just net me last night? Besides, I…he's right. I've got to take this assassin out, and he knows it, and the mob knows it, and they all know that this time I'm _their _best hope for survival."

"And you're frustrated because you've got no choice but to cooperate with them," Alfred finished.

That summed it up perfectly. Bruce nodded miserably and stopped pacing to sink back into his chair.

"I don't see what there is to be upset about, Master Bruce," Alfred said softly.

Bruce looked up at him incredulously.

"The Joker on the loose, that's something to worry about—but his involvement doesn't change your mission. You'd be going after the assassin anyway, with or without his help. And then you'd continue on, going after him, and the mob, and anyone else who threatens the innocent people of Gotham."

"But Alfred, this man—I can't shake the feeling that he's got something up his sleeve."

"Well of course he does. He's the Joker."

"What if…what if, Alfred, by taking out this assassin I unleash something much worse on the city? What if the Joker has another reason for wanting him gone? What if—hell, Alfred, what if the Joker's _afraid_ of this guy and he doesn't want to operate in the open until the threat's gone? Then what? I take him down and the Joker finds a way to hold the entire city hostage?"

"Master Bruce, you're not thinking of letting this assassin continue his activities unhindered?"

"I—I just don't know. What's right, Alfred? Do I have a right to take that risk?"

Alfred crossed his arms and sighed, studying his young charge for a long moment. "Master Bruce," he said, finally, "you have done an excellent job of protecting this city. You've consistently made the right decision, acted in Gotham's best interest, even when it was very difficult for you."

He leaned forward, still studying Bruce's face. "You know what the Joker wants. He wants to destroy your moral code, to prove that you're no better than he is. It's easy, isn't it, not to kill your enemies when they're at your mercy? But if you allow a rogue assassin to kill and make no move to stop it—you might as well be doing it yourself. That's what the Joker wants. You can't give it to him."

Bruce massaged his temples and was silent for a long moment. "You're right, Alfred," he said faintly, at last. "I guess this is a chance we'll have to take."

Shark Avenue was quiet that night, which was in itself unusual. The street was aptly named, running through the part of Gotham that went beyond shady into shadowy. Shark Avenue was normally a very active place at night, at least for those who knew where to look. But tonight, even the ambient noise was missing. It seemed as though crime lords and ring leaders of every description had decided to close down shop and take a night off.

And indeed they had. In the basement of the bar at 1239 Shark Avenue, two dozen of Gotham's ranking mob heads and drug lords were gathered around a table, a rare, universal cessation of hostilities. These were the survivors of the wave of assassinations that had been sweeping Gotham's underworld over the last three months. They had begun to get the idea that slinging blame for the murders wasn't working; the force behind the assassinations was greater than any of them, and needed to be dealt with as such.

At the moment, the barman was wondering how long his status as keeper of one of the most popular neutral grounds in Gotham would protect him. Would the assassin come after mob accomplices to, even those who did not partake of criminal activities themselves?

There came a knock at the locked door. The bartender frowned. No one should have been coming by at this hour, not on this night…

He firmly gripped the handle of the axe under the bar, hefting the weapon out from its hiding place. A man in his position was justified in taking precautions…

"We're closed—" he barked, opening the door a crack. The figure on the other side was a woman, dressed in dark clothing, her hair draping innocently over her face. There was a hissing sound and he felt something impact his side. A sharp prick...then he slumped forward and the world went black.

Whisper lowered the air pistol and caught the unconscious barman as he toppled forward. She dragged him back through the door and closed it carefully behind her—no one would see anything from the street. Her gaze traveled over the darkened bar and empty seats surrounding it; the place was completely empty, and, aside from the low hum of a ceiling fan, silent. Fine by her. Inwardly thankful that the fact that the floors were tiled and thus unlikely to creak, she went in search of the door to the establishment's basement. The barman would escape from this with his life. The men meeting in that basement would not be so lucky…

Some people, she was sure, would feel too guilty to take a human life for any purpose. This city's famous Batman was the perfect example; she shared her master's opinion that he was either being framed or protecting the true culprit in the recent murders he was blamed for. Who he was protecting she couldn't guess, but Mr. Nigma was confident, and that was proof enough for her.

But fictional though it may have been, the Batman's apparent guilt was in a way the best thing that could have happened to Gotham. The accusations, the implication that Batman had turned to killing, seemed to reinforce Mr. Nigma's view that lethal force was the only way to truly stamp out violence and injustice.

She was more than happy to be the Riddler's hands to do this job. Thanks to him, Gotham's underworld was now quaking under her fist. As evidenced by the meeting currently happening beneath her feet. Whisper smiled slightly at the thought as she located the basement door and withdrew a case of lockpicks from her bag.

Picking the lock was easier than she expected; the door was new, an addition that came later than anything else in the building—but she still had it opened within a few minutes. Slowly stepping onto the first stair, she paused and heard the telltale low murmur of voices from lower down. Smiling to herself again at the men's utter obliviousness to her presence, she withdrew the Puzzle Box from her satchel. Poising herself to flee when the job was done, she pressed the activation button (making a beep that was louder than she would have liked) and tossed it down the stairs with a loud clatter.

As she sprung away from the shouting of surprised voices, her smile widened. It didn't matter that the assault wasn't very stealthy at all; sure, there would be a certain amount of consternation, but it didn't matter. The thing was programmed to explode the instant anyone got too close to it, so it wouldn't really matter if any of the mob bosses below attempted to escape; such was the flaw of meeting in a place with only one exit; while no one could get in unnoticed, it was equally impossible to escape. If any of them tried for the stairs, the box's motion sensor would be set off.

She sprinted towards the bar's front door, grabbing the unconscious barman by his collar on the way out. She kicked the door open and pulled him through it, dragging him to a safe 10 yards before dropping him. She glanced back at the building, surprised that the panicked criminals hadn't already blown it—and was about to begin her trek back to her car when a massive dark shape dropped in front of her.

She realized in a terrifying instant who it had to be. But she was prepared for this; she sprang instantly back from the shape and slapped her right wrist with her left hand, deploying the long knife concealed in her wrist guard. She aimed at a stabbing, slashing punch at the vulnerable opening in the Batman's mask; but he was quicker than he looked, and evaded the blow easily. As he caught her right hand and restrained it, she dropped her left to grab the air pistol on her belt. But he was there first, even faster this time, and in an instant both her wrists were restrained and the Batman threw himself forward, pinning her under him. She struggled and thrashed, to try to land some sort of damage on him, but it was in vain. For all her instincts, reflexes and skills, she simply couldn't overpower his armor or his size advantage.

But then, a deafening impact split the air. A shock wave of scorching air washed over them, as both Whisper and the Batman turned, mesmerized, to stare at the explosion.

"I think...you're too late," Whisper murmured, grinning to herself even as Batman glowered down at her.

His armored fist came at her face and the world went black.

* * *

How are we doing? Feedback please!


	5. Chapter 5

Coauthors: Kagmichiru and DracoCron

Disclaimer: Nothing belongs to us, except possibly Whisper.

**vampassassin: **Thanks for the feedback! The plot's going to get a bit complex, so we're glad to know it's coming across well.

* * *

Commissioner Gordon strode through the bustling halls of the Gotham Central Police Station, his mind whirling. It was nearly midnight, far past his usual working hours, but they had called him in specially for this.

A few hours ago, the string of mob killings had taken on new proportions—a bombing on Shark Avenue had taken out around two dozen people in the basement of one of the mob's best-known meeting places The victims were presumably mob operatives, perhaps even leaders—but in the wreckage left by the explosion, the GCPD would have trouble discerning how many had been killed, much less the identities of the victims. Early indications were that it had been a high-level meeting.

_Two dozen mob leaders…_this single blast may have triggered the complete reshaping of Gotham's organized crime syndicates.

And they had a suspect. Not merely a name or a set of fingerprints, but a living, breathing person, in custody. She had been found, tied up and unconscious near the crime scene. It was a female, Gordon noted with surprise as he glanced at the hastily typed report. An Asian female…

He stepped into the interrogation room and saw her sitting at the table. She looked, he thought with amusement, like a stereotypical ninja, dressed in a tight-fitting suit of grey so dark that it was almost black. Her hands were cuffed behind her and she sat with her head bowed, long blue-black hair obscuring her face.

She looked up at the sound of the door opening, and Gordon froze in his tracks. "Oh my God…" The suspect's face was bruised and recently bloodied, but recognizable nonetheless. Gordon simply stared. "Miss Lieng?"

She cracked a weary smile at his expression. "Hello, Mr. Gordon."

Gordon had no idea what to say. He had suspected Nigma of being connected with the string of mob murders, but have the man's _secretary _handcuffed in his interrogation room, dressed like an assassin…things like that just didn't _happen_ in law enforcement.

He cleared his throat and sat down opposite the woman, feeling strangely awkward. He'd questioned dozens of suspects, some of them clearly hardened criminals. But there was something about this situation, something about questioning a woman, a polite young woman with whom he'd exchanged pleasantries, who appeared to be injured and was now a suspect in multiple murders…

"I suppose you're aware, Miss Lieng, of the very serious situation you're in."

She looked down, looked to the side, avoiding his gaze.

"You are the prime—the only suspect—in the murder of what now looks to be about two dozen people. And possibly more. Did you commit the other murders? Do you know who did?"

The woman finally met his eyes, looking faintly amused. "I am not that stupid, Mr. Gordon."

He took a deep breath and sat back in his chair. "No, Miss Lieng, I suppose you're not…but I'll be honest with you. I don't think you acted alone. These crimes—even this bombing alone—are too large to be personal in nature. They were committed for a purpose. What would that purpose be, Miss Lieng?"

She turned her face away again, but the faint smile remained on her lips. "Because there is a purpose, I could not have acted alone? You are suggesting I am incapable of such a thing, because I am a woman? Because I am a secretary?"

"I'm suggesting you were roped into this, because in my experience, ordinary, successful citizens do not suddenly turn around and decide to single-handedly behead the mob."

"But your famous Batman did."

Gordon took a deep breath. Bringing Batman into the argument…this was a sticky area. He decided to take a risk. "We are not stupid either, Miss Lieng," he said softly. "It was Batman who stopped you, wasn't it? It was Batman who prevented you from escaping and left you for us to find."

She sat up a little straighter. "Yes it was, Mr. Gordon," she sounded almost proud of this fact. "He is a much faster responder than any of your cops. And are you going to put that in your papers? Are you going to note that I was delivered to you by a murder suspect whom your department has been mysteriously unable to locate, despite his near-daily appearances throughout the city?"

Commissioner Gordon was becoming annoyed. This woman was playing games with him. "Everything goes in the paperwork. Your…unusual mode of arrest will have no bearing on the other evidence. You were found only yards from the crime scene, in possession of an impressive array of lockpicks and other illegal devices. And we have a witness."

Her eyes widened at that.

"Yes, Miss Lieng, the owner of the establishment corroborated your identity when he regained consciousness. And he showed our medics a puncture wound that appears to match one of the weapons you were carrying at the time of your arrest. We also have the remains of a very interesting explosive device—with the name of your employer, Mr. Edward Nigma, literally engraved on it."

The woman paled. She opened her mouth once and closed it again, ineffectual. Then, to Gordon's shock, she bowed her head again and burst into tears.

"I'm s-sorry," she sobbed, her chin trembling violently. "I never meant to—to hurt Mr. Nigma." She shook her head violently. "He didn't know. The R & D department was right there, and I—I stole—" she trailed off, sniffling slightly, having apparently made her point.

Gordon simply stared. "You didn't mean to hurt…Mr. Nigma?" That was the line he couldn't get past. _What about the people you murdered?! _He thought, but did not say.

"He's been like family to me," she confessed, in the thick voice of an ashamed child. "My only family. After they killed my parents, and I—I was in a bad way. He helped me…rebuild my life. He said he wanted to rebuild the entire world."

_Rebuild the entire world? _Gordon was listening raptly, now.

"When we came to Gotham, he said he wanted to try where others had failed. Where Harvey Dent had died, and Batman—he said Batman was a failure, because he killed people. But…but I didn't agree." She raised her chin a little higher. "I wanted to help him, by weakening the mob, by frightening them. And I wanted to—to avenge what they did to me and my parents. That was a different city, a different syndicate. But it doesn't matter," she spat, "they're all the same."

Commissioner Gordon felt his hopes for this arrest fading. Indicting this woman would be no trouble—she'd as good as confessed to all the crimes, and they had ample physical evidence and a witness. But they had no evidence tying the crimes directly to Edward Nigma. And her story was convincing. Listening to it, Gordon found himself doubting his own suspicions; perhaps these murders _were_ simply the work of an angry, misguided orphan. And Lieng had a point about Batman; such a thing was not unheard of in Gotham. Nigma had certainly seemed comfortable and open with Gordon in person. But then, so had Miss Lieng.

Gordon sighed wearily. "You realize, Miss Lieng, that Nigma Corporation will be investigated one way or the other, regardless of your testimony. It's standard police procedure when a company's unmarketed weaponry is used to commit a crime." _Or if it's not, it should be_, Gordon thought, wondering if such a thing had ever actually happened in Gotham before.

"The Puzzle Box was a military contract," she said faintly. "It's all in the books."

"For your employer's sake, I hope so." Gordon stood up. He'd gotten everything out of her he could hope to manage tonight. Her questioning would continue tomorrow, when everyone involved had had a chance to do some thinking.

"Comissioner!" she cried, suddenly animated as he headed for the door. "This isn't right! What's _wrong _with killing mobsters? They're all scum," her voice rose to a near screeching pitch, "murderous scum, like the scum that destroyed my family! They _raped _me, Mr. Gordon! I was fourteen! Your Batman—he's got it right, and your pathetic police force _hunts_ him because of it. Why bother, why worry about leaving them alive when there are innocent lives in danger? I apologize for betraying the trust of Mr. Nigma! I will _not _apologize for killing—"

Gordon let the door of the interrogation room slam shut behind him. Then he leaned against it for a long moment, gathering his strength. This was going to be a very trying investigation, in more than one way.

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Sorry this one's a bit short! Next update will be soon, as soon as we put the finishing touches on some things.


	6. Chapter 6

By: Kagmichiru and DracoCron

Disclaimer: Nothing belongs to us, except possibly Whisper and some of our interpretive work.

Thanks very much to the Doctor and vampassassin for your excellent reviews (and the answer to both your questions are "yes" ;))! And of course to Minerva's Cat, our first faithful reader. :)

* * *

"Stalemate."

The Riddler sighed, rising from his seat and looking up at the ceiling of his inner sanctum, painted black and scattered with stars. It was annoying, this latest incident... although the fact that two dozen mob leaders had been eliminated was certainly cause to celebrate, he would have preferred that he not have to sacrifice the freedom of his best lieutenant to do so. But she'd agreed to the plan, after all, and the sacrifice was worth it.

Still, he felt strangely and uneasy without her around. Part of him said that this was only rational; while he was faster than he looked and a very skilled marksman, he likely wouldn't be able to stand up for long against most of the criminals he was destroying in a physical fight. But another part of him--the part that almost always was in charge--said that it was foolish. He was in the most heavily protected room in the most heavily protected building in the city, and from it, he could manipulate the lives of many without ever needing to put himself in danger.

Whisper's presence was comforting, though, as though she was a living example of what humanity could be like if it ever acheived enlightenment under his guiding hand--a goal, he repeated to himself, that was getting ever closer for him. With the upper echelon of the mob obliterated, he could be almost certain that no other forces would mount any kind of active opposition to his plans... at least, not of the sort that he would have any kind of trouble dealing with.

He smiled as he remembered Gordon's preliminary overtures of investigation against his company. The man was so earnest, it was almost heartwarming. How he'd managed to get into a position of power was beyond the Riddler, but he was forced to deal with it.

It had all gone very well, however. Nigma had acted the part of shocked and disappointed father figure in front of Gordon, and it had worked like a charm, just after he'd played the part in his morning news broadcast; as usual, his philosophy of freely revealing all facts about yourself that were going to be discovered anyway had paid off, he believed. "Eccentric," they said about him, "but honest to a fault."

While that last part wasn't even close to being correct, no one had a chance to find out differently. Gordon and his men had made as thorough a search through the company's books as they'd ever done, but all they found was more and more evidence that the Puzzle Box had been a prototype for a military contract that Nigma had been hoping on winning in the near future. A device that would work as either a grenade or an explosive charge, and potentially flooded the area with napalm to boot, could be a very useful if nasty tool for the army. He could practically see Gordon squirm as he tried to find something, anything, he could use against the company, but it was airtight. Internal security had been toughened, since that one time long ago...

The Riddler sighed again. Back in a smaller town, some young ambitious fool in R&D, who'd been planning to blackmail Nigma about the real purpose of the Puzzle Box, had been... efficiently stopped. First, Whisper had fed the information to a local tabloid newspaper which was running out of ideas. After that story (THE TRUTH IS OUT: E. NIGMA'S SECRETARY--MAD BOMBER!!) had broken, Nigma knew his reputation was safe, but to be on the safe side, he changed the elevator passcode one night when the idiot had been working alone. He was dropped off at the wrong floor, and not surprisingly given the nature of the building, was never seen again. He didn't consider a skeletal hand, found ten stories up from where the man had been left, to count as being seen again. After that, he knew he could count on his employees' loyalty... very much.

And he knew that he could do so for this latest plan. Even he had associates who were... shall we say, slightly shady, and they knew what to do. At the earliest possible opportunity, poor, orphaned Whisper would be the victim of the mob revenge hit. A hit so efficiently carried out that no trace of her would ever be seen again...

The Riddler smiled wickedly. Once Whisper was back in his building, he could move onto the next step of his grand scheme... and soon, all of Gotham would be his, and his alone.

As it must be...

* * *

At that moment, Whisper could not be aware that her smile mirrored her master's. Part of her was thankful to Gordon for trying to think the best of her; he was an astute one, surprising given how hard he clung to the broken legal system. But of course, his powers of deduction were as nothing compared to the Riddler's... combined with her own considerable skills at acting, the fools in the GCPD would be left absolutely nowhere, and with nothing linking Whisper's crimes to anyone but herself. And soon, they would not even have her…

The Riddler would get her out of here. It was not his highest priority—his own good name was certainly more important than her freedom, but he would manage it nonetheless. He had made clear that despite her willingness to be sacrificed, he would intervene in the event of her capture, in such a way that the escape could not possibly be traced to him. And he had never let her down. Not since she first met him…

Before she met him, her life had had no purpose. No goal to pursue, no direction, not even the means to feed and clothe herself. Back then she had been homeless, her world ruled by paranoia—a clinic doctor once told her she verged on schizophrenia. She didn't know what the diagnosis meant; she only knew that her days were ruled by irrational fears and her nights by delusions, and at that point in her existence surviving was merely a reflex with no reason behind it. Only fear had kept her alive, and the occasional mercy of others.

She could not clearly remember the days that had left her like that, now. She knew her family must have been killed—at least she remembered a time when she had a family, and then a time when she didn't. It was for the better, she thought, that she didn't remember what had happened. Those memories had done nothing but traumatize her.

Then, she'd met him. On that day... she'd been startled by the sound of an explosion, momentarily terrified, then fascinated as she looked up to see smoke and flames pouring from the entrance of the bank, a safe distance away. Having nothing else to do, she had abandoned her empty change cup and crept closer to watch the fire, wondering what could have caused it.

As the flames began to die down, leaving only black smoke pouring from the hole, he had come. She shivered as she remembered him. He hadn't been wearing his trademark outfit, only a bland, grey suit and tie. But she could sense something special about him from the moment she laid eyes on him. His red hair and blue eyes seemed to glow, only accentuated by the drabness of the suit and his grim surroundings, seeming perfectly at home in an otherwise ordinary face. His presence was calming. No, not merely calming, she corrected herself. It was calm itself. It was the essence of pure calm, his self-assured manner, his easy smile, his sense of absolute certainty that nothing could touch him even as he walked through charred embers and into a blown-out bank vault. Absolutely calm in the midst of absolute failures in the way the world was supposed to work. He was exactly what she needed.

The sight of him had blasted through her walls of self-imposed terror like the Puzzle Box she later learned he'd used on the bank vault. She had followed him into the bank, followed him into the vault, and when he noticed her with some surprise, she asked him who he was. His surprise and suspicion had melted as he laid eyes on her; he smiled kindly, gave her his name, and asked for hers in return. She had followed him out of the bank vault and into the getaway van, and had never looked back since.

She had been his most devoted follower from that moment on, and he had seemed to take a special interest in her. He gave her impeccable training and a job, then more training—special training. Ultimately, he entrusted her with knowledge of his ultimate aim: to use his superior intellect to bring enlightenment to the human race. It had always, he said, been an illogical thing, but in the increasing complexity of modern society, humanity's irrationalities were more damaging than ever before. More damaging to the innocents caught up in the machine, like her. It was his mission to gain the knowledge and the means to reform all of humanity.

He had even shared with her his greatest secret: a formula, still in development, with which he could achieve immortality. With that loan of time, he could act at any speed he chose. He could spend eternity accruing information, testing theories, designing systems. And then... he had offered her the same thing, if she would consent to be his right hand.

She barely had to think at all.

Several years and a few cities later... here they were, in the place where the Riddler would have unfettered access to the minds of the populace at last, and carefully lead them into being paragons of humanity that would serve as examples for the rest of the race. It would be a tough battle, of course; Gotham was nowhere near a proto-utopia at the moment. But that would be the Riddler's greatest achievement; starting out with a city that seemed incurable, a city whose name had become synonymous with crime, and turn it into an ideal society. That would be undeniable proof that the Riddler's plans would work in any city or society.

And now, thanks to his generosity, she was not only immortal but eternally young. She would remain forever in her top physical condition, at the peak of her beauty, as long as she continued his treatments. There was one side affect, immaterial to her, but vaguely troubling on a conceptual level. Her skin, blood, and tissues had become toxic to normal humans. The affects had first become apparent on her sparring partner; formerly her combat trainer, he had become increasingly ill with prolonged contact to her. She didn't know how much her condition had progressed since then, and she didn't care to test it…

An odd affliction certainly, but it was one she could live with.

Suddenly, the quality of sound from the outside changed. There was a distant impact, muffled and far-away…the sound of an explosion? Sirens began to wail, followed by the sound of gunshots. Yes, it was definitely an explosion.

Slowly, Whisper stood and walked to the door of her cell to peer through the small glass window. The hall was filled with a swirling fog—smoke, or perhaps it was some sort of gas. Odd…she had assumed, based on the Riddler's plan, that it would be at least a day or two before he extracted her…

Figures were materializing through the mist outside, and they wore gas masks. So it was a gas…that would fit with her master's style.

The cell door slid open, admitting the swirling gas. Whisper smelled it, a sharp, acrid smell, and knew at that moment that something was not right. She lashed out at the first masked intruder, easily knocking him off balance, but her strikes were weaker, sluggish and uncoordinated. The gas was getting to her, making her feel dizzy and weak.

Two more masked men evaded her strikes, seeming uncertain of what to do, before a fourth walked up from the rear and brought the butt of his gun down, hard, on the back of her head. Already gasping from breathing the gas and the physical exertion, she crumpled.

One of the henchmen threw her over his shoulder, and the masked convoy emerged from the gas-clouded hallway into clearer air. The Joker pulled off his gas mask and surveyed the main room of the police station, the bodies and the blood scattered around it. "Grab a cop while you're at it," he commanded the masked henchmen who stood awaiting his orders. "And make sure they're still breathing; can't use a corpse as a hostage."

Then he smiled to himself, not so much at the gruesome witicism, but at the whole scope of the carnage surrounding him. The mob bosses left alive after Batman failed to stop the detonation of the assassin's bomb owed him now, not only for keeping them safe while most of the region's competing crime lords were eliminated, but for arranging the capture of the assassin who would have gone after the survivors next. Sure, they'd be a little angry at him for attacking the Gotham City Police Department on their own turf and forcing them to retaliate by cracking down on the seedier parts of Gotham—but not angry enough to pull their support of him. By this time everyone, including the mob, knew that you had to be crazy to oppose the Joker.

Soon it would be time to find out just how crazy Nigma, Gordon, and the general populace of Gotham City really were.

* * *

As always critiques are very welcome! For those interested, my coauthor and I are projecting this to end up totalling around 22 chapters.


	7. Chapter 7

Coauthors: Kagmichiru and Dracocron

Disclaimer: We own nothing, except possibly Whisper and some of our own interpretive work.

* * *

"That was perfect! Yes, I think we got it that time," The Joker proclaimed, recovering from a fit of laughter that had doubled him over. Harley Quinnzel's hand rested on the camera that was the focus of his amusement. The other source—the prop he'd used for the speech he just recorded—was the bruised and battered woman who was tied up, semiconscious in the chair a few feet away.

The Joker walked up to his long-haired hostage and took her face roughly in one gloved hand. "Whisper….what an interesting name. You awake yet, Whisper? No." He spat the last word as though it were a curse, clearly impatient. "Harley, how long until the stuff wears off? You told me it should've 20 minutes ago."

"What I _told_ you was that we gave her too much. One and a half times the calculated dose—I don't know what that's going to do to her. We'll be lucky if she wakes up at all."

"You're wrong," the Joker said flatly. "What we gave her was _my_ dose back at Arkham. And look at me, I'm just fine!" he flashed Harley a bright, demented grin and then sobered just as quickly.

"I'm going to go see if our cop friend is awake yet," he announced, straightening up. "Make sure this one doesn't stop breathing or anything like that. If this one kicks it, I'll have to find a replacement."

He approached Harley and held out a hand for the camera. She lifted it, thought about smashing it on the ground instead of giving it to him—but instead laid it safely in his palm. Though she was still angry at him about the bombing of the police station, angrier still at his gleeful cruelty to the hostages he'd taken, she didn't want to bring down his wrath on her.

And, in a strange way, he rewarded her good behavior. "That's my girl, Harl," he murmured, bending closer than necessary and patting her cheek with a gloved hand as he took the camera. He treated her more as a pet than anything else, Harley thought—but if human beings were as animals to him, she was the only creature he had any pretense of friendship or affection for. That left her in the odd position of feeling at once like his pet dog and his caretaker—aside from her, he was completely and utterly alone.

What Harley had discovered in the Joker went far beyond psychosis. In fact, she was not sure he could properly be qualified as psychotic. He was not out of touch with reality—he was acutely, comprehensively aware of what went on around him, but he seemed unable to interpret it as normal people would. Unable, or perphaps unwilling was a better term. She'd long since concluded that somewhere in the course of his life, he'd encountered a tragedy so traumatic for him that he had severed all ties with love, empathy, attachment, and anything else he considered dangerous, anything that could hurt him. He now refused to care about anything, refused even to get frustrated, instead rejoicing at every unexpected turn of events, every serious wrinkle in his plans, insisting on viewing them all as new twists in some vastly amusing game he was playing.

Of course, all of this analysis did her absolutely no good so long as he continued to deny that there was any truth to it. Which he did. Adamantly.

She glanced up in time to glimpse the back of his purple coat vanishing as the door slammd behind him. Good. He was gone. It was safe, at least for now.

Harley approached the hostage, the assassin, gingerly. She didn't particularly want to touch the woman who'd killed so many people in the name of justice, didn't particularly want to face the marks the Joker had made on the woman's face. It was just makeup, granted, nothing cruel or harmful. But it was the _way _he had done it.

Harley shuddered, remembering. The Joker had painted on the woman's face as though he were rehearsing for cutting it, drawing in sweeping arcs and haphazard squiggles, then stepping back to admire his work as though the odd makeup job were a sculpture.

And perhaps the eeriest part was that the whole time, she had the sense that he couldn't wait for his subject to regain consciousness so that he could terrorize her more efficiently.

It was then that Harley realized the woman in the chair was looking at her. How long had she been conscious? Well thank God that she was, anyway—she had seemed unaffected by the sedative until they'd given her the dose for a man twice her size.

Harley sighed and dug through the medical kit she'd been keeping on hand. The least she could do was remove that humiliating makeup, and perhaps clean the woman's cuts…

But when she bent to dab ointment on her face, Whisper spat at her. Harley recoiled and let out a squeak.

"What makes you think you can touch me?"

Harley took a deep breath. "I'm trying to help you. Now hold still."

But Whisper flinched away again.

Harley slammed the medical kit shut and crossed her arms. "What do you want from me? I'm trying to help you."

The woman gave her a sullen stare. "Untying me would be nice."

Harley laughed. "Right, I untie the assassin so you can kill me and escape."

"I wouldn't have to kill you if you let me go," Whisper said softly.

Harley paused for a moment at that. "Then _they'd_ kill me instead," she murmured at last.

Whisper seemed to accept that. She fidgeted, repositioning herself within the confines of the restraints, and stretched her neck. "Why," she asked Harley at length, "are you helping him? He trusts you with a weapon."

Harley stiffened and stared at the hostage. "Kill…I can't kill him! I couldn't. The others see no use for me. They'd kill me if anything happened to him. And…" she hesitated, then decided there could be no harm in spilling her heart to a hostage. "To kill him—he's not a monster. He's human. He's cruel and he's ruthless, but he's human. Even if you've killed people, none of those people have been your friends!"

Whisper scoffed derisively. "This Joker is not your friend. He is using you. Think about it. He took you hostage to get out of Arkham, now he uses you to tend his other hostages and watch his back for him. He ignores you otherwise. This man is not your friend."

Harley whirled, furious. "And what about your Mr. Nigma, your Riddler? We all know it's him behind all this, you know—everyone with half a brain knows it, but they're all afraid to say so. How is him using _you_ any different? He doesn't just keep you around; he has you kill people for him! And then take the fall! How is _that_ a friendship? What kind of person would do that?"

"Mr. Nigma is—" Whisper hesitated, "a saint. He's not free to do as he pleases because of the eyes of the public and this ridiculous justice system. They'd have his head, and then he'd never be able to help anyone. Never again…"

"Help people? That's just an excuse!" Harley shot an anxious glance at the door as she finished up. "For your sake," she said in a low voice, "I hope your Mr. Nigma does come for you. I don't want to know what the Joker will do to you otherwise. But…" Harley hesitated. "If he does come, if you do get the chance—please don't kill him. Injure him if you have to, incapacitate him if you have to, but don't kill him. I owe him my life. Without him here, the others wouldn't have any use for me, and they say I know too much…" Harley trailed off, trying to busy her hands with the medical supplies trying to pretend she wasn't just making justifications.

"I could get you out," Whisper offered suddenly.

Harley looked up at her in helpless surprise. "What?"

"When Mr. Nigma comes for me, you could come with us. He wouldn't hurt you. He never harms anyone except in self-defense. You'd be safe with us. Safe from the law and the criminals."

Harley actually considered the offer for a moment. But it was only a moment. "How do you expect me to trust you?" she murmured, looking down almost shamefacedly. "You're an assassin who works for a madman."

"So are you," Whisper pointed out.

"I don't kill people."

"If you leave me here and your Joker gets to me, you might as well."

As though somehow summoned by the remark, the door burst open. "Harl!" A deep voice bellowed. "Get in here, I need your help!"

The Joker strode into the room, his eyes darting about, habitually taking in the surroundings. His eyes fell on Whisper and he smiled. "Ah, Miss Lieng, glad to see you're making a recovery!" He bowed low with a flourish. "We were concerned about your health for a while there." He stepped forward and leaned over Whisper, peering closely at her from within his painted face. "By the way," he confided in a low voice, "you might not want to look in a mirror. You've got a little—ah—something, on your face." He poked the smudged bat symbol with a gloved finger. She merely glared at him.

It occurred to Harley suddenly that there _was_ something funny about the scene; Whisper was tied up, held captive by the most brutal man in Gotham, and instead of mutilating her he had drawn all over her face with makeup. And the hostage, oblivious to this fact, remained dead serious. Harley began to giggle helplessly.

The Joker turned and stared at her. His gaze was initially incredulous, eyes seeming exaggeratedly widened within their painted-dark sockets. Then his face split into a broad, crimson grin. "You get the joke!

He leap towards her, seizing her arm. "Now come on," he growled. "We have another hostage video that needs a cameragirl."

* * *

The image that filled the screen was horrifyingly familiar. In a white-walled room, too generic to be identified, a woman sat, bruised, bound and semi-conscious. Her long blue-black hair fell over most of her face, obscuring it, and the fabric of her dark suit was caked with blood. The camera wobbled as it settled on her, then zoomed out—and another figure stepped into the frame.

The Joker spread his hands wide, a welcoming gesture, and leaned forward in a slight bow. "Hello, good citizens of Gotham . It is I, your faithful clown and entertainer. I'm sure you're all as thrilled to see me as I am to see you—Arkham is simply no fun without you!" he cracked a wide, eerie grin, then abruptly sobered to a look of intense thoughtfulness. "Now then, we have some things to talk about. First off, we've got this girl here—" he gestured towards the hostage behind him, "Whisper or whatever she calls herself. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the assassin of Gotham's underworld. My men liberated her from Gotham Central's holding unit a few hours ago. Anyone who wants to can read her romantic sob story in your morning paper—parents murdered by the mob, took it upon herself to avenge them, blah, blah, blah. I'm sure you've also heard the speculation—that she didn't act alone, that she _couldn't _have acted alone, that the true criminal instigator here is her boss, Edward Nigma. Honestly, it bears all the signs of manipulation, doesn't it? She's his employee—his _personal secretary_, no less, and I'm willing to bet that means there might be a little more than secretarying going on in that private office of his. And the way she _defends _him, ladies and gentlemen—honestly, what lone assassin would do that? Who, when they're arrested for murder, insists that they did it all by themselves, and swears off any rumors to the contrary. Who's so willing to spend life behind bars that they wouldn't even _try_ to drag someone down with them, wouldn't even _try _to make allegations that they were used or manipulated? My diagnosis, for anyone who's interested, is that the great Edward Nigma has this girl wrapped around his little finger, and he's using her to do his dirty work." The Joker frowned in exaggerated sorrow and shook his head. "Sad, isn't it?"

"I'm sure I don't need to remind all of you of the reasons _why_ I'm not the only one who thinks this, but I'll do it anyway. You've all seen Nigma's 'broadcasts'—peace, love, prosperity, justice and order for all, yada yada yada. And isn't that just _exactly_ the pattern these murders have been following? Beheading the mob—and doing it so neatly, so methodically, that there's been virtually no collateral damage. Does this sound like a mob war to you, ladies and gentlemen? Does it even sound like someone trying to _simulate_ a mob war, or like the antics of a lone woman with a grudge? Or does it sound like Mr. Nigma's vision of a new world order, conveniently instituted at the same time as his mayoral campaign? Mr. Nigma, in my mind, has a lot more explaining to do before I'm satisfied." He stepped up to the camera and leaned into it, his scarred and painted face looming large on the screen. "How about you, my good citizens? Are you satisfied?"

The Joker remained close to the camera, fixing the viewer with a thoughtful stare. "I feel that we should also discuss the interesting little manner of Miss Lieng's arrest. My friends in the police department told me some very interesting things—from the sound of things, there's a little competition going on between vigilantes. That's right! Whisper Lieng was turned in to the police department by the Batman. He didn't exactly show up and drop her off at their doorstep; but she was found bruised, bound and unconscious… tied up with a really unique steel fiber that is not standard issue. Honestly, who else do they think could've done it? He might as well have branded her foreheadwith his personal signature!" The camera's view began to move, zooming in on the hostage's face as the Joker, and pulled the curtain of hair aside. Her face was bruised and scratched, painted in lipstick with his ear-to-ear scarlet grin. Her cheeks bore a festive arrangement of red squiggles, apparently drawn in lipstick and a lopsided bat symbol was etched across her forehead in black. The Joker could be heard chuckling in the background as he turned her head for the camera to admire his painting job.

At last the camera zoomed out, and the Joker's voice came again: "Which raises the interesting question…if the Batman is still delivering bodies to the police department, why the hell can't they catch him? For God's sake, people, the Bat's wanted for five murders. If the police are going to keep cooperating with that guy, they may as well turn our little assassin here loose and let them do their job for them. Who knows," the camera's view swung to focus on the Joker again, "she might even take down the Batman in 'revenge' for the rather—er—rough manner of her arrest.

"But all that is just a little aside. The rest of this message is addressed to our dear Edward Nigma, replacement white knight of Gotham , picking up where Harvey Dent left off. I've got your secretary here, _Mister Nigma_, and I've got a proposal. Since you seem to be very good at skirting conventional methods of investigation, I'm issuing a challenge to you; I want you, Mr. Nigma, either come here to collect her yourself, or turn yourself into the police and confess your role in Miss Lieng's. Don't worry, your mob contacts know where I am. If nobody's come out and confessed, and I still have her within 24 hours—well I plan to have some _fun_ with your little assassin. Let's just say that the sooner you get here, the better!"

Grinning, the Joker pranced back from the camera and bowed low with a flourish. "Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your time." He signaled to someone behind the camera, and the image dissolved to the sound of his wild, unhinged laughter.

The image dissolved and cut back to the newscaster's commentary, which the Riddler turned off in disgust. He didn't need the media's opinions on what he already knew. Then he sat, staring at the dark screen for several seconds.

Remembering the Joker, the man's voice and movements, Nigma let a small shudder of revulsion run through him. He normally considered himself to be unshakeable, but there was something distinctly... _wrong_ about that man, something profoundly unsettling and almost alien.

Shaking off the feeling, he directed his attention towards finding a solution to the problem at hand. Gotham's police seemed even more incompetent than he had heard—to allow the menace known as the Joker to escape from Arkham, then break Whisper out of prison, and kidnap her to boot. _With law enforcement like this_, he thought wryly, _there's no wonder someone like Batman decided to take matters into his own hands._

The safest and most obvious solution would be to ignore the message and let Whisper die. She'd understand, he was sure. And if she didn't... well, it didn't really matter. But taking the easy way out had never been his style, and he didn't really want to lose her talents if that could be avoided. Years of training and anti-aging treatments had gone into making Whisper his loyalest of servants, and he wouldn't readily trust another with her duties.

Turning himself in to the police was out of the question, of course, which meant that he'd have to rescue her himself. It shouldn't be too difficult—he did have the arsenal of Nigma Corp technology at his disposal. Now if he could only find the location where Whisper was being held…the Joker had mentioned mob connections. Had he actually leaked the information, or was he merely trying to be irksom by publicly implying that Nigma had mob connections?

The Riddler rose from his seat and began pacing. If the information was out there, his agents should be able to harvest it fairly quickly. Getting inside the building without harm to Whisper or himself would be another matter. After thinking for a moment, he walked over to his wardrobe and removed one of the many canes from it. He grabbed the handle at the top of his cane, twisted, and pulled, producing a pistol in the shape of a stylized question mark.

He opened the pistol's ammo case and smiled. It was fully loaded with tranquilizer darts. A dozen or so of the heavy sedative doses would be more than adequate for his needs.

Replacing the pistol inside the cane, he removed his green jacket, bowler hat, and mask and placed them inside an attache case inside the wardrobe; it was for these missions where it would be wisest not to be noticed by passersby, but when he wanted his costume close at hand, just in case. He was about to close the case when another thought struck him; reaching inside the wardrobe again, he brought out a Puzzle Box. He had a few of them for emergencies at all times; programmed with no riddle inside them and packed to the brim with explosives, they could be useful in a number of cases where subtlety wasn't the most important thing. Closing the case, he picked it up in one hand with his cane in the other, and prepared to leave his office. He had one more stop to make before he engaged the most dangerous man in Gotham…

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This is our last chapter for a few days! Feedback is appreciated!


	8. Chapter 8

**Coauthors:** Kagmichiru and DracoCron

**Thank you** to everyone who reviewed Chapter 7! Chapters will be only one scene this week instead of two, as my coauthor and I are still ironing out some wrinkles.

* * *

Whisper's eyes flew open as she awoke from her doze, her well-honed instincts telling her that something big was about to happen. There was tension brewing, perhaps an imperceptible noise she'd subconsciously detected or a change in the vibrations coming from the outside…

Quickly, she scanned the room, inventorying its contents. It was still bare as it had been when she last looked, empty but for the chair in which she sat, the one in which the Joker was lounging against the wall, and a pile of extension cords in the corner left over from the Joker's horrid 'recording sessions.'

Aside from the Joker lounging, the woman called Harley was pacing back and forth near the window, clutching a shotgun nervously. Whisper didn't know what to make of her—a hostage turned assistant to her captor, she seemed kind enough, yet she refused to betray him…

Remembering the tension in the air, Whisper turned her mind back to the matter of escape. She looked around, she fingered the razor ring on her hand. She always kept an extra hidden on her person, and she'd transferred it to her finger earlier in the jail cell. _Now's as good a moment as any to use this thing_, she thought, and she pressed down on the dark stone.

Although she couldn't see it, she felt the blade slide out of the ring, and began carefully sawing through the ropes. It wasn't incredibly hard; the ring had been designed for exactly this situation, and the biggest challenge was keeping movement to a minimum so as not to be noticed. Within a few minutes, she had sawed through most of the important ropes, and was preparing to finish the job when the door swung open.

Whisper's heart leapt as the Riddler strode in, holding his cane out in front of him, his thin face set and determined. She hadn't dared to expect him to show up and risk himself, but if he had, he must have had an infallible plan. She flashed him a quick smile, but just as quickly hid the expression from her captors.

The Joker was a difficult man to startle, she had to give him that. She couldn't detect any hint of surprise in his face as he grinned broadly, leaping over to her and holding his knife to her throat. "Glad you could make it!" enthused, gently running the point of the knife across Whisper's throat as he spoke. "We were afraid you might've gotten lost."

Unfased, the Riddler responded with his signature small smile. "You were easy enough to find. Now then, mind explaining what exactly you want from me?"

The Joker's grin turned wicked and anticipatory as he leaned forward, drawing Whisper closer to himself. "Well...that is an interesting question. I was hoping the two of us could have a friendly little chat."

Whisper nodded almost imperceptibly in the Riddler's direction. She had finished cutting the ropes, and she hoped he'd see the signal.

His eyes may have darted to her face for an instant, but it was impossible to be sure behind the mask. "What about?" he asked the Joker casually, not breaking the conversation.

"Well, Mr. Nigma, you're a very powerful man. And I can't imagine that you're stupid. I have a proposal for you." The Joker continued running his knife across Whisper's throat as he spoke, apparently oblivious to the fact that she was no longer bound.

"You imagine correctly," said the Riddler, leaning on his cane with interest. "I'm listening."

The Joker licked his lips and pronounced his words carefully, apparently savoring the pronouncement. "I could deliver the Batman to you. Or at the very least, I could guarantee you the opportunity to catch him. That'd look good on your resume, hmm?" he asked, cocking his head.

The Riddler's face remained impassive. "And what would you want in exchange for this?"

The Joker grinned playfully. "All I want is a little chaos,"

"Really, now? How much chaos?"

The Joker shook his head and waved his free hand dismissively. "Oh, you won't need to do anything at all. I just want to see the Batman up against a worthy foe. And him and me—that's already been done. This time I want to sit back and watch."

"Ah," said the Riddler, nodding. "And may I assume you will refrain from disrupting the affairs of my city while I do so?"

The Joker raised his hands, lifting the knife away from Whisper's throat. "_Your _city? Sure thing, _mister_ Nigma. I'll stay put until you and Batsy are done with your little tango."

"And then?" the Riddler enquired.

The Joker shrugged, still grinning. "Why to people keep assuming I have some grand plan? Do I _look _like I do?"

"No, you do not," the Riddler smirked. "And that's the problem. You see, I believe you would just as soon break your side of the bargain to prolong my conflict with the Batman, if it amused you. In fact, I think you'd do anything if it amused you at that moment."

At this assessment, the Joker burst out laughing. "An astute observation, Mr. Nigma," he gasped when he had recovered. "But one thing you should understand about me: I do keep my word. If I say I'll keep my hands off it, I will keep my hands off." As he spoke, he backed away from Whisper, holding his hands up in a gesture of peace, the blade loosely dangling from his fingers.

The Riddler sighed, sounding just a little exhasperated. "You'll keep your hands off of it, perhaps. It will, instead, be some young and ambitious mobster who comes up with a particularly ingenious scheme who gives me headaches. I think not, Mr. Joker. So instead, may I give you my counterproposal?"

The Joker shrugged again. "Shoot."

The Riddler raised his cane, pointing the tip at the Joker in a vaguely threatening gesture. "You leave this city now... and I will not focus all of my efforts on utterly destroying you."

The Joker clapped his hands together in delight at the proposal. "Oh, I like where this is going! And if I don't leave?"

Suddenly, Whisper knew that the Riddler had seen her signal. He jerked his head to the side, and she struck. She leapt out of the chair, delivering an unscientific punch to the side of the Joker's head with the hand that bore the razor ring. He cried out and stumbled, clutching the side of his face. She easily disarmed him, striking his knife hand with the side of her foot, and pinned him against the wall. Prepared to deal more damage, she froze at the distinct sound of a gun being cocked. From the corner of her eye she saw Harley raising her gun unsteadily, seeming unsure whether to aim at Whisper or the Riddler.

The Riddler saw it too. He smiled at the Joker, who still had a hand to his bleeding head, and raised his eyebrows. "My, my," he murmured. "Can your arm candy actually fight?"

The Joker glanced at Harley, his eyes wide in an expression of surprise. "I dunno. Can you, Harl?" Then, in the moment of distraction, he seized the back of Whisper's head with one hand and pressed a blade to his throat with the other. Whisper cursed herself for not anticipating that he'd have an extra.

The Joker looked over at the Riddler, grinning viciously again now that the tables had turned, only to find himself looking down the barrel of a question mark-shaped pistol. "I have a new proposal," the Riddler said in a menacing voice. "This gun is filled with concentrated tranquilizer darts. Either desist now, or I will stun you and take you back to Arkham Asylum." He paused briefly to pull a knife out of the pocket of his jacket, this one larger and nastier-looking than the one the Joker currently held. "After relieving you of your hands."

The Joker forced Whisper's head around to face the Riddler and pressed his bloodied cheek to hers, digging in with the knife's point to produce a trickle of blood. "You'd risk your precious little 'secretary' here? You do realize I'd slit her throat before I fell?"

The Riddler raised his eyebrows again ever so slightly. "Do it. You have more to lose in this than I. And Whisper knows the risks of her job very well."

The Joker shook his head, frowning. "Tsk, tsk," he chided, "You're a cruel man. You're worse than I am. Your _devoted_ assassin, the girl who took the fall for you…"

The Riddler smiled warmly. "Cruel? Hardly. I'm simply logical. A single life means little compared to the lives of many." He adjusted his grip on the question pistol and tightened his finger on the trigger. "Make your choice, or lose both ways."

The Joker shook his head again, still frowning. "Well…if you insist." He whipped his wrist around to plunge the knife's blade into the soft flesh below Whisper's collarbone, then shoved her towards the Riddler. She gasped and fell hard onto her knees, grabbing at the knife's protruding hilt.

The Riddler remained smiling, half-lowering his gun. "Thank you," he quipped. "In exchange..." he raised the gun back up, "you will merely lose your fingers."

The air was shattered by the sound of a gunshot. For an instant everyone froze, trying to calculate what had happened. Whisper's eyes darted to Harley, who was shaking worse than ever and looking terrified; but a faint whisp of smoke trailed from the barrel of her gun. In the center of the room, the Riddler was staring down at the clean, round hole in his chest with apparent surprise. As she watched, he stumbled backwards and slumped against the nearest wall. But even as he sank to the floor, he smiled.

"So you can fight after all. It's a shame... so much that neither of you will ever understand."

The Joker was staring at the Riddler with a bewildered frown. The wound was not bleeding; not even a crimson ring on the suit fabric around it. But within the dark hole, a spark flashed, and a moment later black smoke began to issue from it.

The Riddler's smile widened, almost benevolent. "But first, I'd advise you to find a new base for your operations...in the next twelve seconds."

The Joker understood before Harley did. He sprinted to the door, grabbing Harley's arm on his way out and dragging her into the hallway beyond. Neither of them noticed that Whisper had been left behind, ignoring the blood dripping from her left arm as she struggled to her feet.

"Ten," said the Riddler android, its lips still smiling. "Nine…eight…

Whisper made for the coil of extension cords in the corner. She struggled to open two adjacent windows, and began looping two of the cords around the window frame in between them.

"Seven…six…five…"

She tied the cords in a sturdy double knot, tugging on it hard to be sure.

"Four…three…"

She was out of the window, sliding down the cords with their free ends looped under her backside, a makeshift harness.

The explosion detonated at "two," as she'd known it would. It blew out the windows, destroying her anchor—but by that time she'd lowered herself a good ten feet. The remaining fall into the bushes below was nonlethal.

She sat up, gasping from the pain of the impact on her wounded shoulder, and looked down dizzily at the blood that now covered her. Then she looked up and saw a man rushing towards her. A Nigma employee. She smiled.

_That was a little too close…_

* * *

**Feedback please! **The story's only going to get more complicated from here, so we'd like to know if you guys are liking the complexity or if it's just too much.


	9. Chapter 9 New and Improved!

**By: **Kagmichiru and DracoCron.

Apologiesfor not waiting until today to post **both** of these scenes together. Minor wrinkles were being ironed out in the second, but they really are meant to be read as a pair. Anyway, here's Chapter 9 as it _should_ have been in the first place if I'd been thinking clearly instead of trying to post half of it as an incomplete chapter.

* * *

Harley was shaking. She clutched her head in her hands, trying desperately to shut out the world around her, trying _especially_ to shut out the prescence of the man next to her. The Joker's presence was made harder to bear, rather than easier, by the fact that she still felt a helpless attraction and sympathy for the man.

"All those people," she murmured to herself, seeing again and again the explosion that had destroyed the building, seeing the lifeless bodies of the henchmen scattered throughout the hallway, clown masks still on their faces. Seeing the fallen henchmen had affected her more than the dead guards at Arkham, more than watching the Joker harrass his hostages, more even than witnessing the attack on the police station from a distance. Perhaps it was because she'd known those men, however briefly and however unpleasant towards her they may have been. They were still men, human beings, like her. Like the Joker. And now they were dead, so needlessly…

An arm came around her shoulders, wrapped in the sleeve of a long purple coat. The arm was surprisingly gentle. "You okay, Harl?" His voice was softer than she'd ever heard it, softer than she'd thought it capable of being. She tried in vain to supress a flood of feelings—feelings of dizziness, of rapture at his concern, completely irrational feelings that this somehow validated everyhing she'd felt about him at the asylum.

All those feelings were complete and utter nonsense, but that didn't seem to matter one bit.

She looked up and out over the skyline of Gotham City. This was the Joker's favorite spot, he'd told her—a nook that probably shouldn't have existed and almost certainly wasn't safe, on the roof of the burnt-out building. The city seemed oddly dull during the day, grey and grimy against a powder blue sky. "He left her to die," Harley murmured. "Edward Nigma, the Riddler, whoever—he left her to die."

"Oh. Oh, you mean that girl." The Joker rolled his eyes, his eyes, his expression softened just slightly for Harley's sake. "Well what'd you think he was gonna do? Men like me, honey, we don't—we don't give a damn, we really don't. And he _is_ like me. You saw it in him. He never stopped smiling."

Harley looked down. It was true; the green-suited android hadn't ever stopped smiling, had never seemed the least bit discontented, even when Whisper was stabbed. Even when she was left, wounded, within range of the explosion. And no programming was that sophisticated and refined; she was sure someone had been controlling the robot, that the _real_ Riddler had been watching and communicating through it. And he had done nothing to help the servant who put her life in his hands.

Harley began to cry quietly, drawing her knees up to her chest.

The Joker let out an exasperated sigh. "What am I gonna do with you, Harl?" he chided, but his arm tightened to pull her into a protective embrace.

_Protective, or possessive? _she wondered. _'What am I gonna do with you…'_

"That's a good question!" She blurted, suddenly finding strength to pull away from him. She glared up at him, her chin quivering, anger overriding her self-preservation instincts. "What _are_ you going to do with me? Kill me? Rape me? Both? Or are you just going to keep me around forever as a lackey?"

The Joker looked at her with a strange sort of curiosity in his eyes. He leaned in, bringing his painted face closer to her, and smiled. "Tell me Harl, do I really look like a guy with a plan?"

And suddenly, she couldn't keep a straight face. That smile, when there wasn't a knife at your throat, was terribly contagious. It was almost funnier because she was angry at him, because he had treated her so cruelly, because it was so completely and utterly out of place. "You like that line, don't you?" she asked, helpless to stop the grin that split her face.

He chuckled and, completely unexpectedly, leaned in to kiss her forehead. "You're the best Harley, you really are."

Still grinning, her face now crimson, she dropped her head onto her knees again. It was impossible to have a logical conversation with this man, but at the moment she wasn't sure she minded. Illogical leaps were far easier to deal with than the logical conclusions of her present reality. And affection from the Joker…so rare, and so strangely rewarding.

Another long silence passed between them, at once comfortable and interminable. It was comfortable, she thought, to be sitting with him without an ulterior motive or some frenetic activity to distract him. But she could not shake the curiousity, even with her head turned away from him, to know what he was thinking. She could almost sense his expressions, his mannerisms even as he thought to himself. None of his expressions or mannerisms were normal, none had a normal origin or could be interpreted in a normal way. What did go on inside that head of his, when no one was watching?

When she finally ventured to look, he was staring out over the skyline with his lips pressed outwards in exaggerated thoughtfulness.

"Harley, do you love me?" he asked, his expression unchanging.

She opened her mouth and didn't manage to close it. That was possibly the last thing she had ever expected to hear out of the Joker. _'Do you love me?'_ This from the man who shunned and scorned all forms of affection, who refused to allow himself to have any feelings deeper than a fleeting grin.

She realized he was looking at her, his expression now serious. And he wasn't saying anything more.

And she still couldn't think of a response, so she leaned forward and kissed his cheek. Her lips landed on the scar, and she felt the Joker stiffen.

_What the hell am I doing?_ The thought crossed her mind as she pulled away, and suddenly she burst out laughing. That should have occurred to her…three days ago? Four? Had it only been three days, since she drugged a guard and stole his gun and allowed herself to be dragged through the halls of Arkham as a hostage?

The Joker's arm was pulling on her again, pulling her almost into his lap, as though she were more a rag doll than a woman. "We're gonna burn Gotham together, Harley," he murmured.

She stared at him, wanting to be frightened by that but unable to feel anything but wonder at his strange behavior. "Is it because I saved your life?" she asked aloud. She'd been referring to his affectionate behavior rather than 'burning the city' line, but the connection seemed as obvious to him as it was to her.

He looked at her and licked his lips, a gesture she'd come to recognize as thoughtfullness. "I dunno." He studied her then, and fixed her with a lopsided, almost admiring smile. "You would've killed him," he said. "You know, if it had actually _been _a him."

Jarred by the recollection, Harley broke the Joker's unnerving gaze. "I know," she said, very softly.

"I was flattered by that, I was." His grin widened and went back to staring out over the skyline.

Flattered? _Flattered? _A man had almost died, and he was _flattered_?

Of course, if she hadn't shot the—android, bomb, whatever it had been—who could say what would have happened. Perhaps the Riddler would have made good on his threat, would have tranquilized the Joker and sawed his fingers off while Harley watched in horror. Perhaps he'd have been imprisoned for life, then, without even the use of his hands…

And perhaps if she hadn't shot, Whisper wouldn't have been stabbed and left behind, to die in the explosion engineered by her own master. Perhaps no one would have died, perhaps the Joker would have had no future victims…

Abruptly, the Joker pushed her off of him and got to his feet. He stretched, teetering precariously as he stood near the edge of the building.

"Well," he announced, "back to business. That explosion set us back a bit. We need to find someone to replace our dead policeman."

* * *

Commissioner Gordon let his head sink into his hands, trying in vain to make sense of the scatter of papers on his desk. It was not the papers themselves that confused him—they were merely representive of an unintelligible flood of events and information. Over the past 72 hours the Gotham crime scene had—literally and figuratively—exploded.

It had started with the bombing that took out the two dozen mob leaders. That had been more than enough to handle—it had started a complete refiguring of the mob power structure that the police could have seized as an opportunity. And the bizarre message found engraved on the Nigma Corp puzzle o Not to mention the arrest of the woman who appeared to have perpetrated the bombing, along with half a dozen other assassinations—her identification and confession had set into motion a full-scale investigation of Nigma Corp, Gotham's second-most powerful corporate entity, which was bound to get ugly in the face of inevitable resistance from Edward Nigma.

But those events had turned out to be the easiest to deal with. The evening following the arrest of Whisper Lieng, she was taken from her holding cell—in an attack that all but destroyed the entire holding wing of the police station, left five officers dead and one missing. Such a breach of police security was unprecedented—and more frightening still was the question of who had done it. Could Nigma have been responsible, or were the surviving mob leaders taking the fight to the GCPD on their own turf?

This was all enough chaos to keep Gordon and the entire justice department occupied for months. But today had brought the most troubling developments yet; the surfacing of some baffling evidence in the case of the mobster murders, and the return of the Joker, who had apparently not been killed during his escape as originally thought.

The Nigma investigation was now more complicated than ever—within hours of the arrest and confession of Whisper Lieng, police had responded to a call to the residence of Oswald Cobblepot, a small-time drug-dealer and mob operative. What they had found at his residence was the murdered body of a Nigma Corp employee, along with severeal million dollars with of Nigma Corp technology like that that had been linked to the most recent mob bombing. In the space of a few hours, they had gone from having no suspects to having two of them—each of whom appeared guilty of the same crimes, and each of whom was linked with Nigma Corp. This was perhaps the only bright spot in the week's developments; the discovery of the second suspect would weaken the first suspect's story that she acted alone and allow the GCPD to turn up the heat on the investigation of Nigma Corp.

But for right now, the Nigma investigation—and everything else—was taking a backseat to the reemergence of the Joker. Gotham had not forgotten the previous havoc wreaked by the mass-murdering clown; the knowledge that he was alive and free had the entire city on the verge of hysteria. At this rate, Gordon would be lucky if he ever got to focus his attention on the Nigma investigation. He thought to himself, only half-joking, that he'd be lucky if he survived that long.

The Joker's reemergence had been sudden and spectacular. At some time during the night, copies of a recorded message had been left on the doorstep of every major news agency in the city. The Joker's message, in which he paraded a bruised and battered Whisper Lieng and taunted Edward Nigma to come collect her—cryptically, "before it was too late," had subsequently been played and replayed on at least one television station at all times throughout the day.

That was not how Gordon had hoped to find out the identity of the police station bomber. That was also the last thing the police needed in their investigation of Nigma Corp—especially with the Joker's implication that they'd used Batman's help to illegally round up their first Nigma-linked suspect.

And that was not the worst of it. For the Joker had recorded a second message—this one delivered, thankfully, only to the police department itself. In his 'private address' to the GCPD, the Joker had paraded another hostage—the missing police officer from the previous day's bombing—threatening torture and other unspeakable actions if the GCPD did not arrest Batman within 48 hours.

_Doesn't he think we're trying?_ Gordon wondered, furious.

He had to admit to himself that _he _hadn't been, but he was the only one among the police force who knew of Batman's innocence. Every other man and woman on the force had been doing everything in their power to locate the Batman—and until this morning, Gordon had been thankful that they always failed.

Now he had no idea what to do. Unlike Nigma—or at least what the Joker had implied about him in this public message—the GCPD did not have the connections to trace the location of the recording. They had no idea where their missing man was being held, and no idea of where to start looking. They could not stage a rescue without some vague idea of where to look. Gordon only had one idea for how to combat the threat, and it was risky and probably illegal…

He wondered if Batman would still come if he called him. Everything about the vigilante's previous actions suggested that he would, _especially_ if there was a hostage's life on the line. The Batman's reputation also suggested that he would be able to escape, fairly easily and without any help from Gordon, if he was captured and things got dangerous.

But capture would mean unmasking him. There was no way around it. If the police department were to capture him, were to make an arrest official, they would have to unmask him and record his true identity. The Joker would be satisfied with nothing less. And with the Batman unmasked, his freedom of movement would never be restored—the vigilante would be out of the picture forever as a force of order and justice in Gotham.

Gordon was not sure he could do that. Even to save an officer, even though the Batman _was_ officially wanted for Harvey Dent's murders, he was not sure he had the right to ask this of him. He was not even sure he could _let_ Batman turn himself in if he offered to.

Gordon massaged his temples. Impossible choices, impossible information—impossible tasks, with their normal base of operations in shambles and the entire GCPD operating out of a small wing of the District Attorney's office, half a dozen officers down, and most of the rest living in fear for their lives and the safety of their families. A mere three months after the Joker's arrest, he'd only been back on the scene one day and Gotham City was very nearly paralyzed again.

Almost cringing as he did so, Gordon reached to opened the latest file to arrive on his desk. He did not even dare to wonder what had happened now—if it was another major incident, he didn't know what he would do.

He groaned as his eyes fell on the report summary. It was an explosion. An explosion of unknown origin had taken out an entire floor of an abandoned office building in Gotham's mob-controlled district. Gordon sighed heavily. At least it had only been one floor. And at least it appeared to have been relatively uninhabited—only six charred bodies had been found inside.

_Only six. How comforting._

But as he scanned the report for details, Gordon's stomach suddenly went cold. Five bodies had been found in a hallway, near the explosion's epicenter—and of them armed, like guards or soldiers. The sixth was in a room on the end of the hall, partially shielded from the explosion and considerably less charred than the others…and his hands had been bound, like a hostage.

Gordon jumped up from his seat, file still in hand, and flagged down a female detective from the bustling hall outside the open door of his office.

"Check the dental records on these victims. Now. Especially this one." He pointed to the description of the sixth victim, scowling to underline the urgency of the matter. "Check them against the records of…police department personnel." It almost hurt him to see it. The detective, a rookie, looked at him wide-eyed with understanding. Gordon hoped to God that he was wrong.

With a heavy heart, he stepped back into his office and closed the door softly behind him. He couldn't handle anything more today, he really couldn't—

His cell phone began to beep.

_It can't be anything else. It's something normal. Absolutely normal. It has to be. _

He closed his eyes and pulled the phone from his side pocket. When he opened them again, he almost sighed with relief. It was Barbara. His daughter Barbara, calling on her cell phone. She probably wanted him to take her out somewhere after work.

He answered the call: "Hello, Barbie?"

Heavy breathing and a panicked whisper greeted him on the other end. "Daddy? He's got us—" Barbara's voice cut off abruptly with a scream, and there was the sound of high-pitched giggling in the background. There was the sound of rustling; another hand seizing the phone.

"Daddy? _Daddy? _Daddy Gordon?" The new voice was high-pitched, mocking, frenzied and terrifyingly familiar. Then, in a singsong parody of sweetness: "We'll be wait-ing, Commish'ner!" The voice dissolved into manic laughter and the line went dead.

* * *

**There. **That's a better ending for this chapter, wouldn't you say? :D


	10. Chapter 10

**By: **Kagmichiru and DracoCron

Thanks as always to our insightful reviewers! To clear up any confusion, **be sure to read "Chapter 9 New and Improved"** before starting this one!

* * *

Gordon's heart pounded in his throat the whole drive home. He did not think before he acted—he merely acted, aware all the while in some distant part of his mind that he was acting irrationally. He was doing exactly what they told every victim, every officer, not to do; he was running _away_ from the police, telling no one, attempting to take matters into his own hands.

And he knew why he was doing it. Because he didn't trust the police department with this. Not with his family. He didn't know what the hell he expected to do _without_ them, but he sensed in his gut that a police investigation would do no good. Or at least that was how he felt. He was well aware that he wasn't thinking rationally as he left the office without a word to anyone, ignoring the protests of his colleagues, and drove to his home, not knowing what he expected to find or do there.

Naturally, the place was in a shambles. The door had been broken down, and the inside simply wrecked. There was no blood, he was relieved to note; at least none that he could see. It was merely wrecked furniture, scattered papers, broken dishes…it was eerily easy to picture the Joker doing all of it himself, opening cupboards and hurling their contents about in sheer glee.

But at least his family was alive. They had to be; the Joker needed live hostages. So he had that in his favor. They were alive, and they would remain alive, until the Joker had Gordon and all of Gotham where he wanted them…

And where exactly would that be?

Gordon stood in the middle of his wrecked kitchen, and the magnitude of his stupidity began to dawn on him.

He should not have come here. This was the last place in the world he should have come. The Joker could have been waiting for him—anyone orany _thing_ could have been waiting for him here. Yet he had flown here, alone, without thinking.

The possibility of a bomb occurred to him, and for an instant he considered fleeing the house. But no; that didn't feel right. The Joker would do nothing so simple, not after going to the trouble to kidnap his family. He was safe here, for now. The Joker didn't want to kill him, he intuited; the psychopath was playing some sort of game. It was all a game, and Gordon didn't yet know what the goal of it was.

But if the Joker wanted to be pursued, just maybe he had left Gordon some clues.

Ignoring a dozen phone calls, Gordon scoured the house from top to bottom. All the cooking knives were missing from the kitchen, a fact which nearly sent him into a panic until he realized it was probably designed to do precisely that. The upstairs bedrooms were just as thoroughly destroyed as the downstairs rooms. There were letters written on the bathroom mirrors in lipstick: a large, capital "I" in one, an "N" on the other.

_IN? The word "in?" Or are they initials? Of a person? Of a place?_

He continued searched in vain, not knowing what he was looking for, doubting he would find anything of value. In frustration, he started opening cabinets and drawers, searching for anything at all that could be of use.

It was then that he found the first knife. It was in the bedroom desk drawer, a large meat cleaver with a bat symbol in the same red lipstick. Still numb but now with a sense of purpose, Gordon methodically searched the rest of the house and assembled all the knives alphabetically in a spot he cleared out on the living room floor.

_B, E, G, M, R, plus a bat symbol. Batman? Add the "I" and "N" from the mirrors... _He scrambled the knives haphazardly, looking for any familiar arrangements of the letters.

_M E B N I R G. B R I NG ME. "Bring me," plus the bat symbol. "Bring me Batman." _

Gordon stared at the message he had assembled at his feet. He might have guessed. The Joker wanted Batman. But not just arrested; the Joker wouldn't have gone to all this trouble if that were all. He wanted him hand-delivered, by the looks of it. By Gordon himself.

He leaned his head back and pressed his hands to his temples. This confirmed his suspicions about the sixth victim in the most recent bombing; the Joker's original police hostage was dead. He'd taken Gordon's family to replace him. And with his new hostages as leverage, he had changed his demands. He no longer wanted the Batman simply arrested; he wanted Batman hand-delivered to _him_, and was probably counting on Gordon himself to do it.

Gordon closed his eyes. _Oh lord…_ Delivering Batman was out of the question. It wasn't even a viable option; the Joker had shown himself to be deceptive, and Gordon found it hard to believe he'd give up such a valuable prize as the police commissioner's family just because his demands were met. Of course, if Batman were involved, perhaps a rescue could be staged…

Or perhaps the Joker would anticipate this, and use the hostages' safety to force Batman into compliant submission.

Gordon shuddered. No, getting Batman involved was out of the question. It was what the Joker expected. Besides, God only knew Batman would—hopefully—be needed sorely enough to reign in everything else that would be happening in the meantime. With the assassin Whisper on the loose again and an apparent all-out war going on between Nigma, the mob and the Joker…

Suddenly, Gordon's eye flew open. An all-out war. Between Nigma and the Joker. The question had been bothering him, in the back of his mind: if the site of the morning's explosion _was_ the Joker's lair, and the sixth victim _was_ the kidnapped policeman…where was the Joker's other hostage? No female corpses had been found among the ruins. Who _could _locate and infiltrate the lair of the most dangeous man in Gotham? And who would want to?

Edward Nigma. Whisper. Nigma had taken the Joker up on the challenge posed in his public tape, and gone in to get his assassin out of the Joker's clutches.

The Joker had claimed in his tape that Nigma had mob connections, that they'd know where to find him. Apparently he'd been right. Could Nigma find the Joker again, wherever he was now? Could he find where the Joker was holding Barbara and the children?

Going to Nigma would mean dealing with a man who was being investigated by the GCPD for murder, a man who was almost certainly responsible for the deaths of dozens of people. Including, Gordon thought with a shudder, the officer who was likely the sixth victim of the bombing.

But Nigma was doubtless already hunting the Joker for his own purposes. And getting Nigma involved would not compromise the investigation of his company—if anything it could distract Nigma from protecting his assets.

Gordon's' phone rang again. He let out a small sigh. He wouldn't be able to delay the discovery of his family's disappearance much longer. He had a choice to make.

He picked up the phone. "Hello."

"Jim? Where the hell _are_ you? We got the dental records back, it's—"

"My family is missing," he said faintly.

There was a long pause on the other end of the line.

"All of them," he elaborated numbly. "The Joker left his calling card."

"Oh God. Jim,—"

"Wait! Don't tell anyone, yet. I have an idea."

* * *

Inside Nigma Technologies' corporate headquarters, Whisper was reclining on the mat in the center her personal quarters. The place was the second-best guarded room in the building; with a mechanism set up to pump an unauthorized intruder full of poisoned darts if they failed to enter the proper passcode. It might have seemed odd for a garden—but perhaps not so odd when the garden was the home of Edward Nigma's trusted assassin.

The garden, a heavily fortified greenhouse, protruded like a fortified glass bubble from the side of Nigma Corp's headquarters. It gave the building an aesthetic touch, and with Nigma's odd security preferences, no one had quite realized it wasn't a typical recreational garden. The place was filled with an impressive array of plants of all shapes and sizes, a menagerie from all corners of the globe. The place even had several small trees in deep planters placed around the winding, narrow footpaths that ran through the place. The general effect of walking through it was of being drowned in the greenery of a lush jungle. Whisper's tastes did not run to small plants or subtleties; when she was here she wanted to completely forget about the crime-ridden city that lay beyond. She had even fashioned her garden into a miniature ecosystem; there was a perpetual, hushed buzz of pollinating insects.

In a nook that passed for a clearing, Whisper was lying on her stretching mat. She rolled over onto her side, sighing as she reflected on the previous days. It had been an exhausting evening and morning, and things were only looking to get more stressful. Since the previous night's bombing was planned to be Whisper's last, evidence had already been planted on the Riddler's mob informant, Oswald Cobblepot linking him to stolen Nigma technology and framing him for the murder of his competitors as well as one of Mr. Nigma's agents. So Whisper's arrest at this most inopportune time had thrown things into confusion—the police now had _two_ suspects linked to Nigma Corp and the murders.

Whisper sighed again. Had she been arrested any sooner, her claim to have been working alone would have gone uncontested. Now the police were opening an investigation into Nigma Corp—not an insurmountable obstacle, but certainly an irritation. Even though the circumstances had been beyond her control, she could not help but feel she had somehow failed him by telling a story that contradicted the evidence he had planted. If she had only known that the evidence had already been planted…

Fortunately, the Joker's escape seemed to have provided a distraction for the police. Though they pretended not to be overburdened, they'd be more than a little tied up dealing with the mad clown for a while now.

The Joker…Whisper's lip curled with disgust as she remembered the man. She had heard quite a bit about him, of course; everyone in Gotham had in the months since his first emergence. His terrorist actions and his apparently lack of purpose were detestable enough—but meeting him in person brought her to a whole new level of hatred for the man. His treatment of life as if it were some kind of meaningless game seemed to cause her very soul to rebel and protest against his insanity. It was the antithesis of all hope that the world might have, and the antithesis of what the Riddler was trying to achieve for it.

Whisper had been mystified by Harleen Quinnzel's cooperation with him. She had recognized the woman instantly as his former psychiatrist, from the news reports on the day of their apparent demise. She didn't seem to be with him quite by free choice…yet she made no attempt to escape. She seemed not to have been with him long enough for him to drive all the sanity out of her, but Whisper wondered if he was chipping away at it. She seemed to have gone from gunpoint hostage to reluctantly willing assistant in a matter of days. She had shot a man in his defense during Whisper's escape. Not a real man, granted, but Harley had no way of knowing it wasn't the real Edward Nigma. If it had been, she likely would have killed him…

Whisper wondered what 'Harley' would have done if Nigma had tried to rescue Whisper without threatening to mutilate the Joker…would she have let them get away unscathed?

She had said all this to the Riddler when she'd returned to the base, and he'd listened intently. At the end of her story, he'd nodded gravely, and swore to her that for nearly killing her, as well as for his other crimes, that the Joker would suffer the most horrible fate he could imagine. What that was, Whisper couldn't guess, but the Nigma's promise in itself made her feel content that justice would be served. The Joker more than deserved anything that could happen to him, after the endless suffering he'd caused…

Sighing again, she looked up through the glass roof at the clouds that floated tranquilly over Gotham. They to belong to part of a different world, oblivious to the chaos below them. Much like the Riddler. And much like her plants, her garden...At least for now she could center herself in this, her prized domain. And someday, when the Riddler's plans came to fruition, Gotham itself would be as serene as the sky and the plants that surrounded her. And because of Nigma's kindness, she would live to see it. Even if his goals took centuries to accomplish, she would live to see it…

She sighed, feeling a sharp pang at the unwilling thought of her own future. One of the few things she'd lost, one of the few sacrifices things she'd had to sacrifice for Nigma's plans, was the ability to have children. The anti-aging treatments had rendered her sterile, and probably unable to support another life form in her body even if she were to somehow concieve. Before Nigma had explained his plan to her, she had wanted children.

But she would have them, some day. When the world was a little saner, and she and Nigma could operate openly, she hoped to take humanity's broken children on as her own. Orphans like herself, and other lost ones…

Perhaps this maternal instinct was the reason she loved her plants so. In lieu of humans to care for, she tended these green things, watching with delight as they grew. Perhaps it was this same maternal instinct that had led her to offer amnesty to Harley, if she would leave the Joker. Perhaps that was why her mind kept harkening back to memories of the other woman, who had seemed such a helpless victim of the Joker's abuse. Perhaps somewhere in her mind, Harley reminded Whisper of herself, of what she was before she met the Riddler…

Perhaps someday, Whisper would be able to help her. After the Riddler's plan came to fruition and the Joker was dealt with, perhaps he would take in Harley as he had done with Whisper. And Whisper could try her best to undo the damage the Joker had done…

The pager clipped to her belt buzzed. Whisper jerked upright, reflexively starting for the door. There would be more time for recovery and introspection later. Right now, it was time to serve her master again.

* * *

**  
Feedback **please! We're doing our best to move the story forward and keep all the plotlines tied together, but there are so many characters to keep track of. O.o


	11. Chapter 11

**By: **Kagmichiru and DracoCron

**Glad** to see everyone seems to be enjoying the ride so far. This'll be our last update for a few days; we're trying to keep up with you readers!

* * *

The Riddler was looking over stock reports and enjoying the morning sunlight in his office when the telephone rang. He frowned at the ringing reciever with a mixture of apprehension and surprise. He wasn't expecting any calls this morning. Unless…

He picked up the receiver.

"Mr. Nigma," a receptionists' voice chimed, "I have an agent from Wayne Enterprises on the line for you."

_Yes. _Nigma allowed himself to savor the moment. "Excellent. Put him through."

There was a click, and then a tentative "Hello?"

Nigma leaned back in his chair and smiled. "Hello. Edward Nigma speaking."

On the other end of the line was a deep breath, oddly distressed-sounding. Nigma frowned. "Mr. Nigma, this is Jim Gordon. I'm sorry about the made-up cover story, but as you've probably heard, these are extenuating circumstance. I need your help."

The Riddler blinked in surprise, and some annoyance at the deception. And yet, this sounded intriguing… "Very well, Mr. Gordon," he said mildly. "What do you require of me?"

There was a pause. "Have you seen the news today, Mr. Nigma?"

The Riddler smiled wryly. "Indeed I have. You and your family are kidnapped, I hear. So the question is: Is the Joker giving you one phone call, or are you not missing as claimed?"

Gordon's voice was hesitant. "I'm not...the same kind of missing. I wasn't at home when the Joker came. But I won't be...acting as police commissioner until my family's back. A conflict of interests, as you might imagine."

"Ah, I see. I'm listening."

There was the sound of a deep, indrawn breath on the other end of the line. "Mr. Nigma, in his message the Joker implied that you have mob connections capable of finding his location. And I think you did. I think the bombing that was put on my desk this morning was in fact your rescue of Whisper Lieng. My question is: could you do it again?"

Nigma smiled to himself. "Well I won't say anything about this morning's alleged bombing, but…I could find him, given time."

"How much time?"

Nigma shook his head. _How eager this man is, and how trusting…_ "Oh, I have an idea of where to start looking. But I do require something in return."

There was a long, deadly silence on the other end of the line. "I can't endorse you, Mr. Nigma."

The Riddler smiled. "Oh no, no Mr. Gordon. What I want…is for you to tell me everything you know about this Joker. You worked with him personally, I understand?"

Gordon sighed again, though whether from exasperation or relief was hard to say. "Yes, for about an hour. I don't know that I can tell you much about him."

Nigma raised his eyebrows. Was the man going to be difficult?" You 'can't', or you 'won't?'"

"Can't, in this case. We have nothing on him. No name, no other alias, no matches on any biometrics—"

"It is not his biometrics that interest me. It's his character."

There was a stunned silence on the other end, then a laugh. "His character? That's…I'm not sure anyone could enlighten you about that, Mr. Nigma. The man's inscrutable."

Nigma was growing impatient. "Well tell me what you _do_ know."

"He's as much a masochist as he is a sadist. I watched him laugh while being beaten within an inch of his life. He seems to have no sense of self preservation, yet he's adept at escaping death. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to his behavior."

"I see. In your brief acquaintance, did you ever see the Joker displeased or distressed?"

There was a pause. "No. He seemed to enjoy every minute of it. Of course in hindsight that may only be because he already knew how he was going to escape."

"Then do you think he fears imprisonment?"

Nigma could almost hear Gordon's shrug on the other end of the line. "I don't know what he fears. I don't know if he's afraid of anything."

"Do you have any information on his background?"

"None. With that makeup we can't even approximate his age except to say he's probably between twenty-five and forty. He seems to have come out of nowhere." Gordon paused. "Not unlike yourself, Mr. Nigma."

Nigma smirked. "Astute. In that case, I want you to find me Batman. He has fought the Joker in person, and I would guess, is the most knowledgeable person about him."

Gordon paused again, even longer this time. "And what does finding him entail?"

"You would know that better than I, if I'm correct and you were actively working together before his little series of... indiscretions. Alleged indiscretions, I should say." His smirk grew broader.

"Well I wouldn't say there was anything "active," about it on my part, but he did occasionally decide to intervene in police affairs. I suppose what I'm asking, Mr. Nigma, is how you expect to converse with him. He's not famously cooperative, and he doesn't exactly do what I tell him to."

_Now we're getting somwhere. _"It should be simple. I don't believe he'd refuse another offer for help in defeating the Joker."

The ever-wary Gordon still spoke slowly. "Well I think that depends on what kind of 'help.' Honestly, I don't know what kind of information the Batman has. We don't know how he found the Joker last time, let alone if he could do it again."

Gordon's continued façade of naivete was beginning to get irritating. "You _do _want to find your family, don't you Mr. Gordon? I want you to call him for me."

"I can call. Whether or not he'll answer is more than anyone can say."

"Of course. Do you have a particular location for the three of us to meet?"

Nigma could sense Gordon hesitating at the other end of the line, debating with himself. "We could...the top of your office building may be ideal. The police station no longer has the equipment to make the call, for obvious reasons."

"Very well. I'll have someone pick you up. Where are you?"

"Right now?" There was muffled rustling, as though Gordon were looking around. "I'm on Shark Avenue...keeping a very low profile."

Nigma raised his eyebrows. _He's courageous, I'll give him that._ "I'll send a car down to collect you. Once we reach my headquarters, I'll mobilize my own resources, and you may…signal the Batman whenever you wish."

Gordon sighed, and Nigma could almost hear the moral dilemma raging in his mind. "Very well, Mr. Nigma. You use your mob connections, and I'll signal the Batman for you."

"Excellent." Nigma smiled. "Oh, and Mr. Gordon?"

"Hm?"

Nigma took another moment to savor Gordon's current vulnerability. "Tell me…there weren't five murders in the wake of Rachel Dawes' death, were there? It was four murders and a suicide... and it was Dent, wasn't it?"

Gordon spent a long moment contemplating that. "It...it's hard to say. When someone falls off a building, it's natural to assume they were pushed. But God knows Harvey had enough to be depressed about."

_He prefers to keep this up, does he?_ "He did, certainly. Which is why he killed everyone he could who had a hand in his fiancee's murder. And Batman took the fall for it."

"What makes you say that, Mr. Nigma?"

"Batman is not a killer. But he would hardly throw his half-respectable reputation away on a whim. Only if he had someone worth protecting... someone who was now dead, and couldn't be punished, and one who would serve as a wonderful heroic martyr to the city."

"That's an...awfully elaborate deduction, Mr. Nigma. I'm not sure if I'm touched by your faith in Batman or disturbed by your lack of faith in Harvey Dent."

_Unbelieveable!_ "Come now, Commissioner. Must you continue this charade? I fail to see what the point is if I already know the truth."

"Mr. Nigma, what do you want from me? I don't see how you have any evidence to believe this is all a "charade." I also don't know what you hope to get out of it. Why would you want to clear the Batman's name, or tarnish Dent's?"

_That remains to be seen. But knowing how far you'll go to protect Dent is valuble enough information.._. "That's for you to figure out for yourself, Commissioner. Think of it as a riddle to hold yourself over while I deal with finding your family. I will be in touch." With that, the Riddler hung up.

Then he stood and looked out of his office window, over the sweeping vista of Gotham City. Today was shaping up to be considerably more interesting than planned. This Joker's antics did make things very interesting indeed…it was too bad he seemed so committed to destruction.

Mr. Nigma smiled. _Not to worry. There will be plenty of mysteries to unravel once my place in this city is secured._

* * *

The Joker was very much enjoying the Gordon family. A mother and her two children; hostage situations didn't get much better than this. She was a police wife, granted, so a little steelier than most. But the presence of her children in the Joker's clutches was enough to keep any mother on the edge of hysterics.

He was actually glad that the Commissioner himself wasn't here; it would keep husband and wife both guessing as to each other's welfare, and he could practically picture the contortions Jim Gordon must have been going through to get his wife and children back. It would be interesting to see what he came up with. More interesting, still, since he'd been reported missing along with the rest of his family.

_What are you up to, Commissioner? Coming to get them yourself?_

Bringing the Gordon family to his burnt-out lair had been a calculated risk. His hand-picked thugs had been to and from this location often enough that he could not be certain someone hadn't let something slip. The loyalties of novice gang members were fickle. But then, terror was a potent deturrent. If it took a crazy person to work for the Joker, it took an even crazier one to betray him.

The corner of his mouth twitched. Besides, if someone did attempt to rescue the Gordons, that would make things all the more interesting. If anyone could find them, it would be the Batman, and if the Batman dropped in…

The Joker smiled wickedly. If the Batman dropped in, he would be ready for him.

Behind him, one of the Gordons made a gasping noise. He turned to face them, fascinated. The little boy was sniffling. _Crying_, the Joker wondered, _or congested?_

Ponderously, he took a switchblade from his pocket and started tracing the blade with his thumb. He sauntered up to where the three Gordons were tied up together, and leaned down to speak to the older Barbara Gordon. "You think they'll scrape up the cash in time?"

He had informed all the hostages of his little scheme—he had demanded one hundred million dollars for the Gordons' return. Not that he was particularly interested in the money, or really intended to release them; but it was amusing to imagine the city officials and businessmen scrambling around, trying to decide whether to meet his demands.

Mrs. Gordon glared at him. She had spunk, he had to give her that. "They'll never comply with the demands of a terrorist," she spat.

The Joker couldn't resist chuckling at her vehemence. It was admirable, but very, very fragile. He shifted his gaze to the younger Barbara—Barbie, he'd heard the mother call her—and put one gloved hand under her chin. "You're very pretty, you know that?"

The girl stared at him in wide-eyed terror. She was fourteen or fifteen by the look of her, round-faced and smooth-skinned.

He brought his face close to her own, smiling, and ran the switchblade's edge along her cheek. "Why don't you smile?" The girl actually tried to, but it didn't work very well with the Joker's face looming a few inches from hers.

He stuck the knife's point in her mouth , and was gratified to feel her mother lurch beside her. But the elder Barbara was too thoroughly restrained, and too afraid to make any sudden movements to provoke the psychopath. The Joker slid the knife deeper, stretching the girl's mouth…

"Joker!" Harleen Quinnzel skidded into the doorway behind him.

He paused, an expression of pure annoyance replacing his sadistic smile. "Harley," he growled. "I'm busy."

"You'll want to see this! Edward Nigma's on TV!"

With an exasperated sigh he pocketed the switchblade and straightened up. "We finish this later."

Yet it was with mild excitement that he strode into the main room beyond. If Nigma was saying something important, something relevant to his little hostage situation…

Harley and several henchmen gathered around the television screen where he'd assigned them to monitor the news stations. Nigma was indeed on the screen, in his typical outfit of green and purple. He was smiling, serenely and smugly as ever, and addressing the audience.

"And so, Nigma Corp would be honored to pay the ransom requested for the Gordon family…"

The Joker stared. _He's either an idiot, or brilliant._

"However, we're also fully aware that the Joker likely does not intend to release the hostages, even if his terms are met. Therefore I request a personal meeting with the Joker to discuss…"

The Joker snorted and crossed his arms. He didn't need to see anymore. Nigma was an idiot if he thought he had anything to offer that the Joker would take. But then, the Joker's desires and motivations were the one thing that even his allies had consistently failed to understand. Not surprising, really. It was part of what made them so entertaining.

Someone turned the television off, and Harley and the thugs turned to stare at him.

"What are you people, nuts? We're not taking him up on that."

One of the thugs shifted uncomfortably. "That's a hell of a lot of—"

"If _one_ of you tries to take Nigma up on his little offer, I'll kill you myself. Slowly." He grinned brightly. "Anyone want to test me on that?"

There was silence around the table.

"Good. I didn't think so."

* * *

**Current projection:** this is about the halfway point of the story, and we're aiming to have it finished by the end of September. Feedback is appreciated!


	12. The Real Chapter 12

**By: **Kagmichiru and DracoCron

**Many **thanks to the Doctor for pointing out our initial error in duplicating part of Chapter 11! Here's the real-albeit short—Chapter 12.

* * *

Bruce Wayne was privately thankful for Edward Nigma's business proposal. It gave him an excuse to take a personal trip down to the Research & Development division of Wayne Industries. R&D had a uniquely comfortable feel for him—perhaps because it was not merely part of the corporate domain he was required to oversee, but also part of the Batman identity he had chosen for himself. He was thankful to Edward Nigma for that much; his bizarre little 'riddle' gave Bruce an opportunity to consult Lucius Fox.

Fox was standing at a work bench when Bruce stepped off the elevator into the R&D prototype room. It was hardly a conventional meeting place for a company's owner and its CEO, but here they were less likely to be overheard.

"What do you think?" Bruce asked, standing beside Fox at the workbench. With this man, the genius whose inventions had saved his life multiple times, Bruce saw no need to mince words. They understood each other well by this time.

Fox shook his head, looking over the blueprints. "Well, it's a pretty piece of engineering we've got here. The streamlining of the circuits, the efficiency of the design—truly impressive. Nigma's not kidding when he says he has some top-notch minds over there. It would've taken our researchers a decade at least to catch up to this on our own."

Bruce hid his surprise at that. "The design's good, then? He said it had a defect. I'd half been expecting it not to work at all."

Fox chuckled, smoothing the plans in front of him. "Well, Mr. Wayne, I never said it was _finished_. All the systems that are included are good—but he's left out the most important component. Gyroscopics are vital to the functioning of any free-standing robot, and they're the hardest part. Do you have any idea how _hard_ it is to make a machine balance on two legs? The rest of this design, it's clever and efficient, but nothing revolutionary. The gyroscopics simply aren't here. They're conspicuously missing."

Bruce nodded, understanding. "And there'd be no point to designing the rest unless they had the gyroscopics system, right? So he wants us to know he has the designs, and he's not giving them to us until we agree to his merger."

Fox nodded. "That would appear to be the case." There was a pause. "You're not going to go through with it, are you Mr. Wayne? I assume you've seen through the risks, but…"

Bruce let out a heavy sigh. "Merger with Nigma? Of course not. I don't trust him. And I certainly wouldn't trust him to decide who Wayne Industries employs."

Fox nodded. "Wise as usual, Mr. Wayne." Then he stepped back and crossed his arms. "Now, I assume you wanted to meet down here because of a…special request?"

Bruce nodded, leaning over the table and staring at the Nigma Corp designs that were spread across it. "What can you tell about the technology Nigma uses for security from our connections with him?"

Fox raised his eyebrows. "Corporate spying, Mr. Wayne? You never seemed like the type."

"It's not for Bruce Wayne, it's for Batman. I'm convinced Nigma is connected to the mob murders, and if he is, he's probably killed others. I need to know how his systems operate, and what to do to outsmart them. Can you get me that?"

Lucius clucked his tongue and nodded. "I see. Well, it's highly unethical…but for Batman, I'll see what I can do. Promise me that anything I get you will be destroyed after Batman uses it."

Bruce grinned at him. "You know how much I care about Wayne's profits, Fox."

Lucius nodded, grinning faintly, and began to gather up the papers.

"There's one more thing. This should be fairly simple for you. I need a way to take down the Joker. Something that can't miss, can't backfire, and won't take out innocent civilians. Physical combat has always served my purposes before. But the Joker's gotten smarter. Now there are innocent hostages involved, and I have…another idea."

A small smile touched Fox's lips. "It sounds like you've got something interesting in mind."

Bruce leaned forward, still grinning. "What would I do without you, Lucius?"

* * *

Two nights after the bombing that claimed the lives of two dozen of its denizens, Shark Avenue was quiet again. Police tape adorned the ruins of the old bar, but the investigators had passed by now. And after what had happened there, even the most hardened survivors among Gotham's criminal underworld were giving the place a wide berth. Below the surface, dozens if not hundreds of aspiring gangsters, mobsters, pimps and drug lords were planning in secret to rise up in the power vacuum left by the demise of their former masters. But until the climate changed, anyone who knew the perils of the streets was staying off of them.

It took someone without either experience or connections, someone desperate and impatient to come out in the open on a night like this. It took someone like Antonio Diego, borderline schizophrenic and recent convert to organized crime. He had hoped to make his entrance to Gotham's underworld a spectacular one, by apprenticing himself to the Joker early on in the criminal mastermind's rise to power. But he was beginning to get the sense that the Joker did not care about material wealth—he'd been crazy to turn down Nigma's offer of the ransom money, certainly. Without the trappings of wealth and power, the Joker would never develop into a major player on Gotham's crime scene. And Diego was getting impatient.

With any luck, now, he'd collect the money, promise the prisoner's release—or say it had already happened—and vanish and assume a new identity before either Nigma or the Joker realized they'd been cheated.

Diego leaned against the wall of an alley adjacent to the bombed-out bar, his eyes darting up and down the street anxiously. The occasional car passed, but none of them stopped. He glanced at his watch: 12:43am. He was beginning to doubt the authenticity of Nigma's message.

He thought he heard something in the darkness behind him. Turning to stare, he wondered: a rat? Any human would've had to pass him to enter the alley—

A dark shape sprung out at him, and before he could react there was a needle in his neck. He had just enough time to feel think he'd made a terrible mistake before all feeling left his body at once.

* * *

**It **is quite short, I know, but it was either this or wait a couple days and then post a gratuitously long chapter. Next one will be longer, I promise!


	13. Chapter 13

**By: **Kagmichiru and DracoCron

**Nothing** belongs to us except possibly Whisper, and our own interpretive work.

**This **is the second of three fairly short chapters for this week; but don't worry, we're hoping to end the week on a high note. schemes evilly

* * *

Diego awoke slowly, disoriented and confused. How had he gotten here, in this dark, featureless room. For that matter, where _was _here? And why were his arms and legs bound? In the shadows before him, he thought he could make out two figures; the shape of a man with a hat stood over him and a slender, darker figure skulked in the corner, barely visible.

"Ahh," said the man-shaped figure. "I'd not expected that the Joker would use catspaws to do his dirty work," There was no mistaking the voice: Edward Nigma.

"Cat—catspaws?" Diego stammered in confusion.

"Unless, of course, you're _not _working for the Joker anymore," said Nigma speculated. "I'd have thought that if he was going to take me up on the offer, he'd come himself."

As Nigma said this, the slender shadow moved closer and revealed herself to be long-haired Asian woman. Diego knew now, beyond a doubt, who that was. The mob-killer, the assassin of criminals who only yesterday had been the Joker's hostage. Diego would have screamed if he'd thought it would help.

"But it seems as though everything works in my favor," said Nigma airily. "You have one chance to escape with your life, and that is to give me the location of the Joker and the Gordon family."

Diego shook his head jerkily, torn between two sources of terror.

"Is something wrong?" the Riddler's voice came again.

"He'd kill me" Diego said in a hushed whisper. "He said, if anyone tried—he said he'd kill us slowly. And if he found out—if _you_ found out, and I'm missing—"

"Really? That's very interesting," said the Riddler politely. "But if I may point one thing out…" He gestured to Whisper, who tapped her wrists together, causing two long blades to slide out. "The Joker is not here now, sir. I am."

Diego was trembling now. "P—protection!" he demanded.

The Riddler watched him for a few more seconds, then sighed. "If I must… I will bring you back to my headquarters after you tell me where the Joker is. You will remain there until he's been dealt with, at which point I will turn you loose, and hopefully you will find a better career and employer."

Diego 's trembling lessened, and he regarded the Riddler with a mixture of terror and awe. Was it really possible that he might escape from this alive?

"It depends, of course, on the quality of your information."

Diego licked his lips. "I know where he is! I've been there, for the last three days—1056 Starfire Road. Big, abandoned building with a burnt-out upper floor. He keeps the hostages up there with him. There are guards stationed down below, but you could get past 'em, with enough guns."

The Riddler regarded him quietly for a moment. "Are you sure?" he asked, and gestured again. Whisper stole quietly forward, raising her arm to aim one of her wrist knives at Diego's throat. "Would you like to reconsider or amend that statement in any way?"

"Yes! I mean, no! The Joker's there, I swear it, or at least he was this afternoon!" Diego stuttered.

The Riddler seemed to relax. "Very well. Assuming your information is accurate, you will be kept safe with us. If it is not…" he lifted an eyebrow. "I leave that as an exercise for your imagination. I have little doubt that you need it. Whisper, come with me. We have work to do."

* * *

Gordon stood alongside Edward Nigma on the roof of Nigma Corp's headquarters, staring apprehensively up at the modified Bat signal l that was spread across the clouds. For some reason Nigma had punched a question mark out of the middle of his version of the Bat symbol—it was quite indecipherable when broadcast on the uneven surface of the clouds, so Gordon wondered why he had done it in the first place. _Vanity_? He shivered and pulled his jacket tighter against the wind that blew over Gotham's skyline to buffet them.

But he knew the night air was not the only source of the chill that ran through him. This whole setup made him profoundly uneasy. He did not seriously think that Batman would be vulnerable to anything Nigma might decide to try on him, but calling him here felt—wrong, somehow. Perhaps his fear was irrational, an instinctive distaste for working with criminals, even if the cooperation did no harm. Perhaps it was anxiety bleeding over from the knowledge of his family's plight, coloring everything he did, including his encounters with Nigma.

Or maybe he subconsciously knew that something was wrong, and…

Gordon shook himself. There was a hostage situation to handle. This was absolutely no time to be getting introspective and questioning his own motives.

"Feeling ill, Commissioner?"

He turned to see that Nigma was giving him a broad, good-natured smile. Entirely _too_ good-natured for this situation. In this light the green of his suit and the red of his hair seemed somehow intentionally obnoxious, far too bright and colorful for such grave circumstances. "I'm fine," Gordon muttered, and he meant it. When he thought of his family, he was ready for anything Nigma or the Joker could throw at him.

At last there came a faint flutter, and a shadow descended on the rooftop a few feet away. Gordon felt relief. _He came. Despite the questionable circumstances, he came._

Batman drew himself up, seeming to radiate venom towards Nigma. He stepped out into the light and paused when his eyes fell on Gordon. Gordon could almost see the wheels turning behind the mask: Nigma and the police commissioner working together? Why?

Nigma leaned forward on his cane, inclining his head towards Batman in an oddly sociable gesture. "I'm glad you've decided to join us. There would have been some—problems, for our dear Commissioner, if you hadn't shown up."

Gordon gave Nigma a sidelong glance, surprised. Was that _meant_ to sound like a veiled threat?

"What do you want from me, Nigma?" Batman growled, clearly suspicious.

Nigma's smile widened, his posture remaining nonchalant. "You've been in touch with the news, I'm sure? Seen Gordon and his family reported missing?"

Batman took a step forward. "And what does that have to do with you?"

"He's helping me," blurted Gordon, afraid to see this escalate any further. Batman had to know that he was here of his own free will.

Again Batman paused, his eyes narrowed.

"The Commissioner speaks correctly," Nigma said crisply. "He did not vanish along with his family; rather, he lied about it in order to take himself out of the public eye. And he came to me for help. _I_ know where his family is, and I've offered to assist him in rescuing them, since the Joker didn't take me up on my offer to pay their ransom. If all goes as planned, we'll be able to take that demented clown off the streets as well as rescuing his wife and children. But your cooperation will be necessary for either of those things to happen."

Batman glared at Nigma. "You know where they are?" the question was an accusation.

Nigma signed in annoyance. "If you must know, one of his cronies came to me and tried to collect the ransom money himself. Instead I agreed to pay him for knowledge of the Joker's location."

Batman appeared to disbelieve this.

"It's true," Gordon echoed faintly. "We've scoped the place out, and there's definitely some sort of activity going on there. And there shouldn't be; the building's barely standing. No sane person would set up operations there."

'_No sane person.' _Batman seemed to accept this, at last. "What do you need me to do?" he rumbled.

Nigma smiled, seeming to savor the moment. "First, I want you to tell me everything you know about this Joker. He intrigues me, you see. It is hard to imagine how such a purposeless force of chaos could come to exist."

Batman made a noise very much like a laugh. "Can't help you there. If I understood him, he wouldn't be loose right now."

Nigma's smile became grim. ""Not much" is more than nothing. Tell me."

"What can I tell you about a man like that? His actions don't make sense to anyone but himself."

"Oh, you've told me something quite valuable already. What else?"

The hunger in Nigma's voice frightened Gordon. Nigma had never shown this side of himself before, and Gordon shuddered to imagine what Nigma could want with such information.

"No one will cross him," Batman spat. "They all fear him. He's turned on the mob and the drug lords. They'll thank you as much as anyone else for getting him off the street."

Nigma watched Batman's responses with some fascination. "I might know differently, on that count. But that's beside the point. What your good commissioner here has proposed," Nigma nodded at Gordon behind him, "is that we send you in to incapacitate the Joker so that the police can deal with his henchmen and rescue the hostages. We would have to coordinate our movements to ensure the success of the raid. Will you do it?"

Batman looked directly at Gordon. "I'll be there. But first," he turned fiercely to glare at the Riddler, "What's in it for you?"

The Riddler's smile turned cold. "The Joker is the most despicable creature I have had the misfortune to encounter in my life time. I want this self-proclaimed agent of chaos and death out of my city, out of commission, and if possible out of this world altogether."

Batman gave no response, but took a step back into the shadows. "Where and when do we move in?"

"1056 Starfire Boulevard," Nigma recited, "at 11pm tomorrow. All that is required of you is that you catch the Joker and transfer him into police custody. And Batman, I have one additional question for you."

The caped crusader stopped, looking affronted at being addressed directly.

Then Nigma turned to Gordon. "Please leave us, Commissioner."

Gordon stepped forward and opened his mouth. This had not been part of the plan, and he didn't like it at all.

Nigma cut him off with the air of a teacher correcting a student. "Commissioner, we are counting on Batman's help if we are to bring down the Joker. And believe me, I want that as much as you do, albeit for my own reasons. I am not about to try to damage our caped friend."

"Go ahead, Gordon."

Both Gordon and Nigma turned to stare at Batman in surprise. _He agrees?_

Nigma regarded Batman with a delighted smile. "There, see, he approves. No harm will come to him. I simply want a moment for…private conversation."

Gordon was reassured by Batman's air of certainty. If Nigma knew and was planning something Gordon didn't know about, Batman seemed to understand whatever it was. Only too glad to be leaving the meeting which made him so uneasy, Gordon stepped back through the door leading down into the building.

As Gordon retreated, Nigma turned back to Batman. He could not control his grin. "I must say, it's been good to speak with you again... Mr. Wayne. Your disguise really is quite good; I must commend you on that. On a basis of first impressions, I would never have guessed it was you. But you may want to track your employees more carefully when they're not in your establishment."

Batman gave no answer. No surprise, no protest or assent; he merely turned away as though brushing off a minor annoyance. He plunged over the roof's edge and was gone.

The Riddler supposed he shouldn't have expected anything more or less. He shook his head and walked to look over the edge. _Such futile stoicism…how many people in Gotham does he think have the resources to come up with a suit like that?_ Even without Reese's independent confirmation, Bruce Wayne had seemed one of the only viable suspects. Though Nigma still might have doubted such competence from the apparently shallow playboy who was known for sleeping through board meetings.

Nigma smiled._ That in itself should have tipped me off. If only the board knew what he spent his nights doing…_

Then his lips pursed in annoyance. _He still hasn't called me back about the merger proposal_. _Unconscionably rude, really. _ He resolved to make his own call to Wayne Industries the following day. If he wanted follow-through, he'd have to pursue it himself.

But for tonight, he had achieved more than enough. Content with the outcome of the meeting, he turned and followed Gordon back inside.

* * *

**Feedback **is welcome! Also on the previous chapter, since some of you might not have seen the corrected version of it. Thanks for reading!


	14. Chapter 14

**By: **Kagmichiru and DracoCron

**Nothing** belongs to us, except possibly Whisper and some of our own interpretive work.

**Thank **you, as always, to our reviewers. This islast short chapter before we get back into the meatier stuff. :)

* * *

The following morning, the Riddler smiled as he cradled the phone's reciever against his cheek. He held it like a precious object; and indeed, it was. It delivered news of his latest triumph to him, the triumph that might just be his most meaningful and enjoyable to date. And soon, so very soon, it would reach its final completion…

"So the device is completely inescapable," he repeated to the engineer on the other end, "as well as perfectly nonlethal?"

The engineer answered quickly, sounding nervous. "We built it to your exact specifications, Mr. Nigma. Nobody's getting out of there without a few pounds of C4, and the life support system…well there's no such thing as "completely failsafe," but I'd guarantee that barring some sort of bizarre accident, the thing'll run for 100 years at least."

The Riddler's smile widened as he savored the words. He'd expected this, of course. But it was always so rewarding when his people lived up to his expectations. "And the restraints?" he inquired delicately.

"Oh, that's the easy part. Once someone's restrained, they're _not _getting out. The system will take measurements of the occupant's weight to calculate their needs so as not to damage them. And it's remotely activated, not automatic, as you requested."

"Excellent. You've really outdone yourselves this time. You have my thanks."

"We're only doing our jobs, Mr. Nigma." There was a slight pause. "Sir—I understand this project is confidential in nature, but I have to ask; what is a device like this going to be used for?"

Nigma's smile widened yet again. "Oh, don't worry. It will be used for a very _good_ cause. In fact, it's a cause that all of Gotham may soon be hearing about, if all goes as planned."

He could almost hear a sigh of relief on the other end. "Thank you, Mr. Nigma. We look forward to it."

Nigma hung up the reciever. He'd have to keep an eye on those inquisitive ones in the engineering department; curiousity was good, it showed initiative, but if any of them should decide that their boss' activities were any of the police's business…well, that would never do.

The Riddler leaned back in his chair and sighed. His impending victory, momentous though it was, was overshadowed somewhat by the spectre of the criminal investigation of Nigma Corp. He was still working on fabricating links between Whisper and that idiot Cobblepot, to throw suspicion off of himself and onto one of his own R&D researchers. If a worker of his was shown to have an unstable mind and a secret vendetta against Nigma and a case of extreme greed, that would nicely explain how two separate agents got hold of Nigma Corp's military prototypes, and used them independently for their own ends. But it would be tricky. Some psychoactive chemicals might be in order, to make the victim of the framing appear more unstable and less coherent. That could be arranged easily enough…

But that damnable police commissioner would likely still not be convinced. Nigma had admired him at first, for his stoic sense of duty and his lack of regard for material rewards. But the man's constant paranoia was growing tiresome. Even while working with him, he consisted in disbelieving anything Nigma said, for no apparent reason other than that he was Edward Nigma. The man was either extraordinarily prejudiced against men who wore masks (unlikely, considering his connection with Batman), or he was that aggravating combination of brilliant and stubborn that had necessitated the removal of so many of The Riddler's previous adversaries.

It would be a risk, perhaps an unnecessary one, to assassinate Gordon in the midst of a police investigation of Nigma Corp. Yet fate seemed to have handed him an uncannily perfect opportunity to do it without even the necessity of covering his tracks.

Gordon had insisted that the police would handle the raid on the Joker's lair. He would accept no on-site help from Nigma Corp employees, despite the fact that it was thanks to Nigma himself that they even had the Joker's location. And what was more, Nigma had overheard him insisting that _he_ was going to go in personally with the force that would arrest the henchmen and free the hostages. An admirable sentiment, but incredibly stupid.

For who would put it past the Joker to have his hideout rigged to self-destruct if it was ever compromised? And wouldn't it be a shame if James Gordon and his entire family were to die in the Joker's trap, along with the Joker's own henchmen?

It was a nasty business, but all for a worthy cause. Gordon would become Gotham's newest martyr, a fallen White Knight to rival Harvey Dent. And the Joker would be obviously guilty of this despicable act, removing any lingering public sympathy for his kind and awakening the hunger for swift justice and order in Gotham's populace.

And it didn't hurt that all of this was on the eve of the mayoral election, of course.

The Riddler sat back in his chair, fidgeting slightly, struck by a sudden nervous thought.

He'd have to leave a riddle. He could not simply kill Gordon and be done with it; that wouldn't be fair. It wouldn't be fair, nor, he admitted reluctantly, would it be _possible_. He had long since come to accept his compulsion as part of the cosmic order, something that was in some mysterious way necessary for him to fulfill his mission, to become what he was supposed to become.

No one, not even Whisper, knew that the habit that led to his nickname was not strictly voluntary. Most of the time it was; most of the time he delighted in leaving riddles, in testing and honing the intellect of his adversaries, in planting seeds of unconventional logic one riddle at a time. But there were times, very rarely, where he wished he didn't have to.

This was one of those times.

Maybe he'd be able to do it this time. Maybe the forces of cosmic order would smile down on this particular endeavor, would see the absolute good and necessity of making the Joker appear responsible, and nullify his compulsion for the duration of this one act.

But he'd better have a backup, just in case.

Planting a riddle that would survive in the midst of what would soon be a smoking crater would be difficult. It would be _especially_ difficult to plant one that pointed to the Joker, that looked like his handiwork, without being actually unsolvably misleading.

And the riddle's presence would have to be obvious. When Whisper killed criminals for him, using her as his hands allowed him to take a roundabout way. If he wasn't there, wasn't physically present at the crime, he had more freedom to twist his riddles, more freedom to camouflage them into things that the police may or may not even notice. But he would have to do this one without Whisper; he had never asked her to kill innocents, and this would be the worst possible timing to add reveal that less pleasant aspect of his plan to her. And he certainly couldn't trust any rank-and-file employee with this information, not when the success of the operation depended on its absolute secrecy.

He would rig the explosives himself. It would be freeing, in a way, somehow purifying, to take such a gruesome necessity into his own two hands. But it also meant that his compulsion would not let him go until he was _sure_ his riddle would be found and interpreted.

Unless the gods of the cosmic order decided to let him off the hook this time.

He stood up from his chair and looked around his office. To frame the Joker, a modification of the man's own slogan would do nicely. He felt a smile forming on his lips. _'Why so serious?'_

* * *

**We're** trying to tread a fine line between revealing too much and too little information here, so please let us know how we're doing!

* * *


	15. Chapter 15

**By: **Kagmichiru and DracoCron

**Disclaimer: **Nothing belongs to us, except possibly Whisper and some of our own interpretive work.

**Thanks **as always to our faithful reviewers. I hope you enjoy the last installment until Monday! Oh, and extra points for anyone who catches the Batgirl homage.

* * *

Commissioner Gordon held his breath as he watched for any sign of movement from the burnt-out and dilapidated building. Yes, this did seem like the sort of place the Joker might enjoy. It almost reminded Gordon of the man himself—but Gordon brushed that thought away, shuddering.

'That man' had had Barbara and the children within his power for over twenty-four hours. Gordon shuddered, hoping and praying the madman hadn't damaged them.

The operation was proceeding slowly, by necessity. The police were trying to form a perimeter around the building without being noticed—which was no easy task in an abandoned corner of Gotham that hosted few passersby and even fewer inhabitants. At the slightest suspicion, it was feared, the Joker may decide to terminate his hostages for revenge—or just for fun. So police coverage was much, much lighter than Gordon would have liked it to be.

If there timetable was right, Batman should have already infiltrated the building. He was to go in first, to take out the Joker and his henchmen with minimal risk to the hostages. If all went smoothly (that dreadful _if_), the Batman would signal, and Gordon and his men would move in.

_If._

There had been no signal, yet.

* * *

Harley was anxious in spite of herself, nearly exhausted with the effort of distracting the Joker from his hostages. They had survived the first day in his clutches relatively unscathed, but now a day and a night had passed since their capture, without any intervention. The Joker seemed immensely irritated by this—he grew more restless and impatient with each passing hour.

He had become a different man altogether in the days since leaving Arkham. In there he had been human; a strange man, perhaps a ruined man, made vulnerable by his imprisonment. Out here he was something else altogether. With Gotham as his playground and its people as his pawns, he never seemed to stop moving. He strode as though he could barrel through any obstacle, glanced at everything as though appraising it for usefulness, barked orders that formed intricate plans he alone understood.

It was as though he'd taken her inside his mind, by throwing the world around him into chaos. As though he used every tool in his power to refigure the outside world to match the choatic landscape of his own thoughts.

When she thought about it that way, Harley almost started to feel sorry for him again.

Right now she was watching him pace frenetically, sitting as far as possible from the door behind which the Gordon family was located. With her over here, she hoped and prayed that he wouldn't glance at it and remember their presence.

"What are you thinking?" she asked him.

The Joker glanced up without breaking stride, his scowl inscrutable. When he wore that look, Harley had learned, he was either angry or intensely thoughtful.

"I am thinking," he announced, "that that Bat freak had better show up soon, or my boredom might, ah, get the better of me." His face split into a grin, then, promising wild insanity just below its surface.

Harley got shakily to her feet. So he hadn't forgotten about the Gordons. "How can you be sure he knows where we are?"

"Oh, he'll find out. He _always _finds out. Besides, our little mister Diego's been missing all day. Either he got hit by a bus on the way back from the burrito joint, or _somebody_ knows where we are."

"And you wanted that?" Harley fought against admitting to herself that in the midst of all this, the Joker still intrigued her. Still, in spite of everything, she could not miss an opportunity to know how his mind worked.

And as long as he was talking to her, he _wasn't_ cutting up any of the Gordons.

He ran his tongue along his lips, introspective. "I didn't _plan_ for our insane hench-clown to run away, but I figured one of them would eventually. Some of them always do." He stopped in his tracks and fixed her with a leering grin. "Tell me, Harl, do you think that one got greedy, or scared?"

And she knew, somehow, that he was testing her. "Scared," she murmured, unconsciously slinking away from him. "I think he was afraid of you."

The Joker smiled triumphantly. "Bin-_go_." He took a step forward, and she realized he was holding a knife. "And what about you, Harley? Are you _afraid_ of me?"

_Dear God! He doesn't want to damage the hostages so he's decided to play with me instead!_

She said the most off-topic, distracting thing she could think of. "Why did you save me on the bridge?"

There it was: the event that had been the lynchpin of their strange, uneasy relationship since Arkham. Every newspaper, probably every citizen of Gotham knew that the Joker's stolen car had plunged several hundred feet into the Gotham River, with both her and him inside.

What no one knew except herself and the Joker was that he'd lost control of the car because he'd been trying to stop her from jumping out of it and hitting the pavement at 120 miles per hour.

He stopped several feet away from her and licked his lips again, still grinning. "Well _Harl-_ey, I saved you because you are just too much _fun_."

"No you didn't," she whispered. It was out of her mouth before she could stop it, but she almost visibly flinched, expecting retribution for contradicting him.

He started forward again, chuckling, his manner nonchalant. "I didn't? I _didn't_? Well then you tell _me_, Harl. Why do you think it was? Do you think it was because I _care_ for you? Because I _owe_ you something? Because it couldn't _possibly _be than a psychiatrist who's in love with her craziest patient is jut too good a joke to pass up. Am I right? Hm? _Am I right?_" He had her back up against the wall now, the knife's razor edge pressed to her throat.

And, oddly, she was no longer afraid of him. If he'd put it somewhere else, threatened to slice or stab somewhere nonvital, she would have believed him. But he wouldn't kill her. He'd just told her why himself.

"I'm not in love with you," she murmured. But it was strangely hard to say that while keeping her eyes trained on his painted face.

The Joker grinned, almost teasing. A gloved finger ran across her cheek. "Yes you are," he almost purred.

"I'm not," she whispered, and suddenly there were tears in her eyes. Not from fear, or from pain at her own plight, but from the realization that this man who stood mere inches away from her, this absurdly dressed ruin of a man who she _did_ care for, was completely and utterly beyond her help. She leaned forward, into the knife, and started to cry.

"Ooh!" The Joker let out an exclamation of delighted surprise and caught her as she fell forward. He cradled her awkwardly against him, as a small child might cradle a new doll. "Harley, Harley Harley," he almost hummed to himself, and then giggled. He tightened his grip, lifting her up off her feet, and swung her in circles as though at some joyous reunion.

"You _are_ the best," he exclaimed, setting her down and planting a cold, sloppy kiss on her forehead. Harley stood, frozen in place and trembling. She looked up at the Joker again, and let out a shriek of surprise and dismay.

Batman stood behind him.

Harley stumbled back, unsure whether she was fleeing the caped crusader or the inevitable fight that would ensue. Without turning to see what she was reacting to, the Joker dove aside and rolled out range of the Batman's grasp.

"Batsy," he observed with relish as he climbed back to his feet, "fancy meeting you here."

Harley closed her eyes. The Batman did not know, could not know about the carbon steel ropes waiting to immobilize him if he followed the Joker's lead into the trap. She opened her mouth to warn him, but nothing came out.

The Joker threw his arms open and danced a little jig. "Come on Batsy, whatcha waitin' for? Tell me you haven't _renounced violence_!" The Joker faked wide-eyed horror at the thought.

Suddenly, Harley realized what was bothering her. _How did he get past the henchmen without making a sound?_

Batman raised his fist, aimed at the Joker, and a smokey gas poured out of several openings near the knuckles.

Harley stumbled back, her breath stopping in her throat by reflex. She watched through misted eyes as the Joker crumpled, his face a mask of surprise and delight at his foe's newest toy. She felt another pang.

_'A psychiatrist who's in love with her craziest patient…'_

Her consciousness was fading and Batman was bending over the Joker when someone grabbed her from behind. Her mind spun for a moment. A henchman? No, the arm was slender, seeming almost to catch rather than seize her. Strength ebbing, she turned her head to see—

_Whisper? She's alive?_

The other woman's face dissolved and her world faded into blackness.

* * *

The sounds coming through the slat in the door were terrifying. All day there had been terrifying noises—the sounds of planning could be heard, orders being barked, arguments and conversations being waged between the Joker and his assistants. Cruelty and insanity were evident in every tone and inflection of the Joker's voice, even when his words were too muffled to be understood. Everytime that voice drew nearer, the younger Barbara Gordon drew her knees closer to her chest and remembered the feel of sharpened steel against her cheek. The look her had given her then, the deranged hunger in his eyes—she nearly panicked merely remembering it.

There had been moments when she was convinced that they were all going to die at the hands of this raving madman. She had known him before as a distant figure, the spectre that had immobilized all of Gotham and struck fear into the hearts of its residents. For one awful day, he had been the distant figure who took her father away, before the truth about Gordon's faked death was revealed.

It seemed sheer luck that the Joker had been distracted thus far from the temptation to mutilate Barbara and her mother and brother. It _seemed_ sheer luck, but Barbara suspected from what she'd overheard that the Joker's psychiatrist-turned-assistant was intentionally protecting the hostages. For that Barbara was immensely grateful, and hoped that the woman escaped the clutches of her maniacal boss alive.

But right now there were more immediate concerns. Now there were the fates of herself and her mother and her brother to worry about. And Barbara had not been idle while the Joker was away.

Assuming that a teenage girl could not possibly be a threat, the thugs who tied her up had not bothered to search her pockets. They had not found or removed the nail file in her back pocket—nor had the current guards paid close attention to the hostages' restless fidgeting. Barbar had been working on the rope that tied her hands with the nail file for what felt like hours. It was slow going, her hands bound at an awkward angle to saw at the rope—but it wasn't as though she had anything better to do.

She was down to the last thread when there was the sound of a woman screaming.

Barbara sawed with redoubled effort at first, thinking that the Joker had finally snapped and done in Harleen Quinzell, and that the Gordon family would be next—but then she heard another voice in the conversation beyond. Her heart soared. Could it be—could it really be Batman?

She felt her mother and brother perk up beside her at the sound of a scuffle.

"It's him!" Jimmy whispered excitedly.

Barbara felt the last thread binding her hands snap. _Triumph!_ She hesitated for a moment, wondering if it was safe to move her hands, or whether some henchman would burst through the door and see them.

It was then that a whisp of smoke curled under the doorframe.

"Time to go!" she squeaked aloud and ripped her hands from the severed bonds, flapping her arms frantically to try to regain her range of motion. She wriggled out from the ropes holding her bound to her mother and brother, and began to squirm, looking for anything sharp enough to cut the ties around her ankles. In the process she caught a whiff of the smoke pouring from under the door.

She froze. That wasn't smoke. She didn't know what it was, but this was definitely no time to be feeling drowsy…she sat bold upright, gasping for fresh hair.

"Barbie," her mother hissed, "what's wrong?"

"Sleeping gas," she whispered, her mind whirring.

Sleeping gas meant that Jimmy was probably right about Batman having been here. But he hadn't come to free them—had the Joker used the sleeping gas on _him_? Then why was it silent? What had happened to Harleen Quinnzel? _Someone_ should have been left conscious on the other side of the door. Or perhaps…was it worth the risk?

Barbara maneuvered herself onto her knees and inched towards the door. She tried the handle and found it unlocked—apparently the Joker had not been too concerned about the security of his hostages, as long as he and his thugs were right in the next room. Barbara held her breath and flung the door open, admitting a ghostly fog that swirled around her waist.

The room beyond was empty. There was a table, still upright, and although the papers had been scattered from it, the television was still intact. No one was here. No Joker, no Batman, no Dr. Quinnzel…

But there was a disgarded switchblade, lying open on the floor. Barbara's heart leapt when she saw it. Fighting off fatigue from the remnants of the gas, she used the door's handle to pull herself onto her tied-together feet, and hopped towards the glinting blade. She plunked awkwardly to her knees beside it and grabbed it, relishing the feel as it cut cleanly through the bonds on her feet. Legs stiff, she staggered back to free her mother and brother.

"We should stay where we are," her mother whispered, shakily getting to her feet.

"No Mom, we really shouldn't. Batman's been here and gone."

"They'll come for us. They'll come find—"

"The door's over here, Mom. This way!"

* * *

Jim Gordon let out a tremendous sigh of relief was the signal went up. A flair shot through the hole in the building's wall—and then just the faintest hint of a shadow passing out of the opening. The Batman leaving the scene?

Filled with a sense of purpose, Gordon stepped out of the car and waved an arm to signal the others. The coast was clear. They could move in and collect his family.

They entered the main floor of the building cautiously. The place was not well-lit, and the police flashlights and guns swept every corner of the room before Gordon was allowed to proceed in himself. On the stairwell they found the first of the Joker's henchman—the frowning clown mask was still fixed on the man's face, but he lay, sprawled and unconscious on the first-floor landing. The entire police force paused at that. The man was alive, but sedated. The work of the Batman? Something didn't feel right about it to Gordon. He recalled, abruptly the tale of the bartender from Shark Avenue, of being pricked with a tranquilizer before the bombing—

His thoughts were interrupted. By the sound of clattering and excited voices further up the stairwell.

_Barbara! _

His daughter was barreling down at him, leaping over the body of another unconscious thug, her brother and mother in tow. On seeing him, the latter two redoubled their pace, flying to meet him in a crushing group hug.

Overcome by emotion at the sight of them, Gordon clung to his family and cried openly. Even surrounded by his armed officers, all concerns for dignity were forgotten in the flood of sweet relief. He even forgot the thoughts that had been bothering him moments before, the oddity of the neatly sedated henchmen…

All at once the lights went out and the building was rocked by a thunderous explosion.

* * *

**I **do so love the Gordons. Howdid we do? Please review!


	16. Chapter 16

**By: **Kagmichiru and DracoCron

**Disclaimer: **We own nothing, except possibly Whisper and some of our own interpretive work.

**There** will be word of the other characters on Wednesday! Right now it's time for some Harley development!

* * *

Harley came to her senses slowly. Her head pounded and her mind and body felt sluggish; she remembered vaguely the gas that had deployed from Batman's glove, remembered him dragging the Joker off...

At this point, she was beyond asking where she was or why; she'd been too many strange places lately. But this one was especially strange.

At first, her eyes did not know how to process what she saw. Something like tiny stars gleamed down at her, but they were not really stars—nor was the black fabric they were embedded in the night sky. They were gems, she realized. Gems, like diamonds, embedded in a black velvet ceiling. Turning her head, Harley saw that gem-studded black velvet covered every surface; walls, ceiling and floor. She saw something that may have been a couch covered in the same fabric, but it was difficult to discern its shape against the omnipresent blackness.

The sheets of the bed were also black. And that, perhaps, was the strangest thing of all. She was in a bed. This bizarre place was someone's bedroom. Whose?

An image of the woman who had taken her flashed before her eyes. Whisper, the assassin, the Riddler's assassin—

But no. There was someone else here. At the sight of him she felt a wave of déjà vu, and had to remind herself that the thing she had spoken to before had not _really _been Edward Nigma.

The man in the green suit turned to her and smiled. "Ah, Dr. Harleen Quinzel. So glad to see you returning to the land of the living. Tell me, can I get you anything?"

She was in Edward Nigma's bedroom. Suddenly, Harley felt slightly sick. The bizarre décor, she thought, fit the personality of its bizarre owner. Unable to think of anything to say to this knowledge, she simply stared.

Nigma's smile widened. "I must apologize for meeting you like this, Miss Quinnzel. But Whisper didn't have a great deal of time to extract you, considering the chaos that was happening outside. You were already nearly unconscious when Whisper arrived; it seems the Batman has a new toy."

Harley regarded the man sullenly for a long moment. "So you...'rescued' me?"

Oblivious to the sarcasm, Nigma inclined his head in a slight nod. "I did. Well, Whisper did, at any rate."

She looked around the bedroom, down at the bed she was sitting in, and wondered about Nigma's social decorum as well as his sense of interior design. "And this is where you bring people you...ah...rescue?"

Nigma took a seat on the diamond-studded couch, studying her intently. "You're a special case, Dr. Quinnzel," he said, as though this were a very high compliment. "In fact, you are one of only three people who have seen the inside of this room, aside from the builders."

Harley was not precisely comforted by this knowledge. She considered getting up out of the bed, but decided there was no point. It wasn't as though she had anywhere to go; and besides, she was tired.

Apparently giving up on waiting for her to speak, Nigma made another venture: "So, then. You are an associate of the Joker, are you not?"

The question was genuinely hard to answer. Harley was silent for several moments. She shook her head slowly "Uh—hostage, associate…I'm not entirely sure anymore. I tend to try to prevent dismemberment, though," she glared at Nigma at the sudden memory of their previous encounter.

Nigma's smile changed, but behind the mask it was difficult whether to say warmth or cold lay in his eyes. "A pleasant ideal, to be sure," he murmured. "Albeit one hard to follow in _his_ company."

Chastised, Harley looked down. It was true that the man she'd been defending was by all counts a vicious torturer. Too tired to reconcile this to herself, she asked very softly: "So what do you want from me, then?"

"I want you to tell me everything you know about the Joker."

Harley looked up and stared at him as though he were crazy.

"Not even Batman was able to give me great insights into his character," the Riddler explained patiently, "and I would like you to give me yours."

"_Why? _Why would you want to know that?"

Nigma's manner did not change. "Because I seek the knowledge of how best to destroy him."

Harley's stomach plummeted. '_How best to destroy him...' _She did not like the sound of that at all. "Well you could always arrest him," she proposed, more than a little hostile. "Or is that too simple for you?"

"Come, now. I think you're the proof of how well conventional imprisonment works on the Joker."

Harley looked down at her hands and giggled. He had a point there. "So what are you gonna do," she asked, still being intentinally thick. "You want to kill him?"

Nigma regarded her solemnly. "You tell me. Would he fear death?"

Harley knew, then, what Nigma was driving at. And she knew what she should say…but she couldn't quite bring herself to say it. She shifted uncomfortably. "Who wouldn't?"

"That was not the answer to my question, Dr. Quinnzel."

"Well maybe I don't like your questions," she snapped.

Nigma gave a small sigh, as though to show exasperation at her petulance. "It doesn't matter. You've already told me that death holds no terror for him."

For no reason she could think of, Harley laughed. "Maybe I have, maybe I haven't. In any case, what do you propose to do? If you're not going to kill him and you're not going to imprison him..."

A small smile returned to Nigma's lips. "Oh, I have something far more effective in mind."

Harley stared in sudden terror at his voice. It was soft and cold, promising unspeakable brutalities with an air of gentility.

"He will beg for death."

Harley could not stand to look at Nigma anymore. There was something terrible in his voice, something that gave her the awful feeling he would follow through with any threat he made. "Why?" she asked finally in a soft, injured voice.

Nigma smiled, as though victorious. "That, I believe I will keep to myself for now." He stood up from his chair and began to pace casually. "I must ask, though, why have you stayed with him for so long? I have a hard time understanding how he could win the loyalty of a woman such as yourself."

Harley smiled, slowly, temporarily shaking off her horror in the face of Nigma's naivete. "Well there weren't a lot of alternatives," she quipped coyly. "I mean his place isn't any easier to break out of than it is to break into. And I'd rather not get shot on my way out, thank you very much."

Nigma stopped and regarded her mildly. "So your ties to him were not personal in any way?"

_How thick can he be?_ Harley wondered. _Or is he testing me?_ "Well I didn't say that, I just said my desire to escape was not stronger than my sense of self-preservation." She paused. "I don't understand why you want to know so much about him. You don't strike me as the type who'd get along with him."

"He intrigues me," Nigma said simply. "His presence in the world seems purposeless, as far as I can gather. He seems to take pride in deforming the cosmic order."

Harley grinned in spite of herself. "Well that's one way to put it, what he does." She sighed, then. Nigma's sentiments were not entirely different from her own when she first met the Joker. "He is...confusing..." she murmured.

"That he is," said Nigma, with a firmness that meant he could only have misinterpreted her meaning. "But a worthy opponent nonetheless." Then Nigma turned to face her, fixing her with that unnerving blank domino-mask stare. "I'm also curious, I must admit, about you."

The gaze made Harley no end of uncomfortable. "I...you shouldn't be."

Nigma seemed unphased. "Oh, but I am. I can't help but wonder…how the Joker has affected you."

Harley looked up at Nigma, at his calm, steady gaze as he studied her as though she were some sort of experiment. The irony of his superior manner, and of the whole situation suddenly struck her. She burst into giggles, sounding more than a little hysterical. "Do you think you're better than him, Mr. Nigma? You _act _like you're the king of the world. Do you think you're any better than my Joker?"

He became very still, the faintest hint of a frown pursing his features. "Do you think that I am not, Miss Quinnzel?"

Harley took a few moments to recover herself. "I think...that the only difference is you _think_ you're working for a just cause. You think you're some sort of father to all of humanity and he's the wolf outside the gate, but in reality you're both doing what you're doing because of an ego trip."

Nigma had resumed his seat, apparently fascinated. "And what makes you say that?"

"Listen to yourself. You're talking about torturing a man until he begs for death. Does this serve your 'brighter world,' Mr. Nigma? Does that benefit anyone at all?"

"Of course it does!" Nigma declared, as though this were obvious. "It will reform the threads of the cosmic order that the Joker has twisted around himself. It will lead me to a greater understanding of the way the world works, and how to enhance it."

Listening to him, Harley burst out laughing again. "Do you really think that? You're more delusional than he is!"

Nigma smiled, but it was an uneasy smile. "I prefer to think of myself as enlightened, Dr. Quinnzel. And in any case, he will serve as an excellent example as to what will happen to anyone who dares to deform my world in such a way.

"Enlightened? _Enlightened?_" She wondered if she should tell him that the Joker thought of himself as enlightened, too.

The Riddler looked amused at her incredulity and smiled, almost graciously. "Doctor Quinnzel, the motto of my organization—and my personal motto as well—is 'Piece of the Cosmos.' Do you have any idea why this might mean?"

"It's a pun," Harley said dryly. "Piece; peace. You think you're destined to bring world peace, like Alexander the Great or something."

"Close. Perhaps closer than you realize. Are you familiar with the original meaning of the word 'Cosmos?'"

Harley hesitated, watching him. Clearly he was building up to something important, and she didn't like the look of smugness he wore. "It's another word for 'universe,' right?"

Nigma sighed. "Sadly, in this day and age that is the usage it has fallen into. But the word, when it was first concieved, meant so much _more_. 'Cosmos' is a Greek word, referring to a study of the order of the Universe. It refers not merely to space and the objects in it, you see; the Greeks believed in a deep interconnectedness of all things. They believed that the laws which caused chemical reactions and the orbiting of planets in the sky were intimately connected to the true nature of humanity. That is what 'Cosmos' refers to. The ancient Greeks believed that nothing was truly random, that nothing happened without meaning. And I believe they were right."

"You realize most of that's been disproved by science, don't you?"

"Hardly. Surely a doctor like yourself knows that those Greeks were the _originators _of science. All we have done since them is pile fact upon fact upon fact. So little attention has been paid to the relationships between those facts, to the underlying principles of order that tie them all together. Modern science has done nothing to disprove the principle of cosmic order. It has merely complicated the Greeks' first simplistic, stumbling explanations."

"And you think that somehow torturing a helpless man is going to help you advance your own theories?"

"The Joker is not merely a man, Doctor Quinnzel; this is obvious merely by saying his name. The Joker has chosen to become the embodiment primal force of choas. Do you see it now? Chaos; the opposite of Cosmos. The opposite of everything I hope to understand and achieve for humanity. And it is sometimes necessary, when you wish to understand a thing, to study its opposite."

Harley's eyes widened in slow horror. There was a spreading pool of coldness in the pit of her stomach, from a realization she couldn't quite place. He had obliquely revealed his plan to her. He was going to…he was going to…

"So I ask you one last time; will you aid me in my quest to bring true cosmic order to humanity?"

She recoiled. "No!"

A slight frown touched his features, but it was almost a frown of concern rather than frustration.

"So what are you going to do with me, then?" Harley asked in a small voice.

Nigma paused for a long moment, looking contemplative before speaking. "Do you not believe that the world would be a brighter place, if humanity could learn to truly embrace the principles of logic?"

Harley fixed him with a grim stare. "Logic...you have no idea what logic entails. The Joker is very logical, you know."

"Is he, now?" The Riddler looked comfortably skeptical.

"Well he doesn't _act _according to logic, but that's because logically, by his reasoning, none of his actions matter. Nor does the suffering of his victims—or yours, Mr. Nigma. Logic alone won't save anyone."

Nigma shook his head. "Not from your understanding, Miss Quinnzel. However, I have... a very long time to discover the best way to truly accomplish my aims."

Harley frowned, wondering what on Earth he was talking about.

"I have made myself immortal," he explained. "Or at least, I have ceased my body's aging process. I have appeared to be thirty years old for twenty years, now. Another reason I consider myself uniquely suited to ."

Still not seeing where he was going, Harley pressed a hand to her temple. "Why are you telling me all this?"

"Because... I would be honored if you would join me in my quest. I see potential in you, Harleen Quinnzel. You will accomplish great things, I can sense it."

Harley stared incredulously at him for a moment, then smiled sardonically. "I've had enough of being involved in the quests of crazy people, thank you. You can count me out of whatever it is you're planning."

Nigma nodded, his expression unreadable. "In that case, you have two choices. You may remain here until you change your mind...or you may leave. Assuming you can find the way out yourself. I will not detain you here, but I should warn you of the risks involved with…ah, wandering the halls in this building."

Harley fell back on the bed. "So now I'm your hostage? In that case, can I take a nap?"

The Riddler didn't laugh. "You may. Whisper will show you to your quarters." He pressed fiddled with his cane, pressing something on its head. A moment later a door slid open in one of the walls, previously invisible because of the décor.

Harley stared as the other woman entered. "Oi vey," she murmured. "Role reversal." _Well I probably deserve this._

To her surprise, Whisper chuckled. Nigma made a dismissive motion with his cane. "You may go."

Harley took that as an invitation to follow Whisper out, sparing a glance for the strange chamber behind her as she left.

* * *

**Hope **you enjoyed that! Please review! Sorry to keep everyone in the dark about the other cliffhanger, but we can only move so fast!


	17. Chapter 17

**By: **Kagmichiru and DracoCron

**Disclaimer: **Nothing belongs to us, except possibly Whisper and some of our own interpretive work.

**We're** in the final stretch! Throughout this week we'll be bringing all the characters' plotlines together; today it's time to develop a certain, mysterious character.

* * *

Whisper led Harley through the winding halls of the top floor of Nigma Corp's headquarters. The dim red lighting said "forbidden" very elegantly, as it did in the other high-security areas. Some of the halls' hidden surprises were marked out in ultraviolet light; the Riddler could see this light, with his modified mask, but Whisper was forced to memorize the locations of the traps. By this point she knew all of them, and was careful to shepherd Harley in the right directions. At least this hall wasn't too bad, compared to some of the building's floors.

When they reached the doorway that led to her garden and sleeping quarters, Whisper withdrew a needle from within her clothing. Behind her, Harley stared at it apprehensively.

"Hold out your arm for me, will you?" Whisper asked.

Harley stuck out her arm, looking nonplussed. "Should I even ask?" she queried as Whisper inserted the needle into her arm.

"It's an antidote. The only residential area in this building is my own room, and to make a long story short, it's highly poisonous. Don't worry, though; this'll make sure it doesn't hurt you."

Harley stared at Whisper.

"The anti-aging treatments I recieve have toxified my own body, and I have a lot of plants. My toxification immunizes me from their poisons, and they…some of them seem to have picked up mine."

Harley blinked, her expression still sardonic. "I have been meeting the strangest people lately," she muttered.

"You're not the only one," Whisper chuckled. She was finding that she liked this woman's manner, despite the strangenss of it. "Come, step into my parlor." She typed the code into a nearby keypad, and the door opened onto her lush greenhouse.

Harley stepped in cautiously, and Whisper closed the door behind her as she followed her.

Harley stood vaguely in the middle of the entrance clearing, turning in place as she took in the plant life all around her. "So..." she asked at length, "you figure Mr. Nigma means to keep me here forever?"

"I don't know," Whisper answered honestly, "but I think that he thinks you'll come around soon enough."

Harley suddenly burst into giggles, shaking her head. "I can't imagine why he'd think that."

Whisper watched her with a sort of strange fascination. "I must say, you seem much calmer than you did when I first met you," she said with a slight grin. There was nothing funny about the fact that Harley had been pointing a gun at her, but the _way_ she'd been pointing it, looking like she was about to drop it…

"Well," Harley murmured, "This time nobody's pointing a gun at me or anyone else. I do prefer my conversations without weaponry."

Whisper grinned. "Then I'd say this must be like a breath of fresh air, except that the air here is poisonous."

Harley laughed appreciatively as Whisper led her down one of the paths to her sleeping mat at the end of the room. She sat on it gestured for Harley to do the same, hoping to set the other woman more at ease. Clearly she was still not comfortable in Nigma's domain.

"I know," Whisper murmured, "that Mr. Nigma isn't what most people would call…moral, or even sane. But really, I'm not sure they're qualified to say. Most people don't know as much as he does."

Harley stared at Whisper in disbelief. "So, you're with him in all this?"

"Yes," Whisper said slowly, "I am." It was surprisingly hard to say that with confidence, in the face of the other woman's incredulous expression. But then, Whisper reminded herself, this was the same woman who had tried to shoot a man only yesterday.

Harley had grown extremely quiet and, slowly, dropped her head into her hands. "Does he… does he usually manage to do what he says he will?"

Whisper frowned perplexedly. "Always. He never says he'll do something unless he knows he'll succeed."

Harley buried her face further into her hands, and it began to dawn on Whisper that there might be something happening that she didn't know about. "What is it?" she asked, leaning slightly towards Harley. "What's wrong?"

"He said...he said he wants to torture the Joker. I know, I _know_ what the Joker is, but...Nigma said he'd "beg for death,"" Harley sounded on the verge of tears.

Whisper's lip twisted in memory of the Joker. "And this doesn't seem... righteous to you?"

Harley peeked up at her, looking faintly horrified. "It does to you?"

Whisper felt anger crest over her at Harley's naivete, at her complete and total lack of understanding. "The Joker is... he's indescribable! Have you _seen _what he does to people? I don't know whether Nigma will come up with something horrible enough for what he deserves!"

"Oh, that's right," Harley drawled, hiding her face again. "I forgot, you're the vengeful assassin."

Whisper glared at her. "Don't think that I enjoy cruelty! I just... how can you defend him? There are people in this world who simply deserve to die."

"But—but how can you defend doing that to anyone? Torturing them? Harley seemed to be struggling for words. "It's hard to believe your Nigma will pull it off, but I...I've seen him in pain before..."

"Have you?" Whisper snapped waspishly, "I wasn't sure he had any feelings, other than sadism."

Harley merely stared at her hands in her lap. "He hates being confined. He can't stand imprisonment. It's like his own mind drives him crazy. At Arkham he...he said he wanted to die." A small, sad smile touched her lips. "I didn't exactly let him out intentionally, you know."

"And he has to move, constantly, to prevent his own mind from becoming too loud?" Whisper asked despite herself. Listening to Harley talk about this man was strangely fascinating.

Harley looked up tentatively. "More or less. He has to at least feel that he has freedom of motion, so that his impulses don't turn on him. He panics if he's confined." She paused. "So…why are you with this Mr. Nigma? I mean I...wasn't exactly a willing accomplice to the Joker. But you seem to practically worship your boss."

Whisper closed her eyes, and leaned back onto the mat, letting old memories wash over her again. Harley needed to understand what she saw in Mr. Nigma, why he was so worthy. "He... saved my soul, really. My life and, more importantly, my soul. I was on the streets, broke, clinically paranoid… probably marked for death in the not-too-distant future. Then I saw him, and his presence was...I don't know how to describe it. It's like all the world's chaos was suddenly order, near him. He was so unshakably calm, and so gracious. Like the Joker in reverse. Perhaps…perhaps that's why I hate the Joker so much. Because he reminds me of everything that I used to be, everything that almost happened to me…"

Whisper watched Harley's face chance as she continued. "And he—Mr. Nigma took me in, and he told me everything about what he wanted to do with the world. He even showed me how he had eternity to do it. It was like being condemned to Hell for something you didn't even do, and then having God release you."

A sardonic smile tugged at Harley's lips. "Eternity… right, he's immortal…"

"And he gave it to me too."

Harley's shoulders slumped again in defeat. "God, sometimes I hate this city."

Whisper sat up again, tentatively reaching out to touch the other woman's hand. "Then help us—help me, make it beautiful. I think…we might be the only ones who can."

Harley looked up at Whisper, smiling wanly. "By killing people?"

"The system…" Whisper started. "Gotham's legal system is so corrupt that the ones who would ruin this city can't be stopped any other way. You saw what Harvey Dent tried—and you saw what happened to him, courtesy of your Joker. I promise you, even though it would have made my attacks look more genuine, I never killed innocents or even low-level operatives if I could help it." Whisper paused, suddenly disturbed. _Am I justifying Nigma's cause? _she wondered, _or my own actions?_

"So that's okay then, is it?" Harley asked. "It's okay to kill them because they're criminals?"

Whisper merely gave her a withering stare. "And we wouldn't all be better off if your Joker was dead? Tell me, how many people has he killed since you've been with him?"

Surprisingly, Harley didn't quail this time. "I know...I know my affection for the Joker is irrational. But he's human. He's human, just like you, and me, and...he's a _bastard_, but there are times when he's almost...childlike, at times..."

Whisper's brow furrowed again. "What?"

Harley shook her head helplessly. "I know, it doesn't make any sense. I can't explain it. But torturing him, killing him...I just can't get my head around it. And I can't help but see the others the same way."

"If I could show the others reason instead of killing them, I would," Whisper admitted. "But they would never listen. And the Joker never would either. Him less than any of them. Most of them kill for greed; he does it for pleasure."

Harley stared miserably into her hands for a few beats, then fell back on the mat unceremoniously. "How do I get myself into these things?" she moaned.

Whisper smiled faintly at her. "Didn't the Joker drag you? How did that happen. anyway?" Whisper found it hard to imagine how a woman like this one could end up serving and defending a man like that.

Harley was quiet for a long moment. "I... I've always had a fascination with dangerous minds. I didn't particularly think of it that way, but the ones that fascinated me always happened to be dangerous. It's why I'm a psychiatrist. It's why I was working at Arkham. And that's why I...ended up counseling him... well, I say counseling. He can't be counseled, really. He knows exactly what he is, and he doesn't want to change. I don't think he could. Whatever he's running away from is too painful to allow him to. It's too painful to allow him to ever _want_ to, so he won't. That's why he does it, you know. He's insane because he says when you're mad like him you don't care about anything or anyone."

"And is that true?"

Harley giggled suddenly. "Apparently for him it is. I don't have the heart to do it, though." Suddenly she stopped, and looked up at Whisper. Why are you...why are you being so nice to me? Your boss is keeping me here, you know. And I…he might've killed you if Nigma hadn't come…"

"Because…" Whisper stopped. _Why am I? I know that Mr. Nigma wanted me to reassure her, wanted to talk her over to our side… _but that didn't explain the genuine affection Whisper felt for her. And Harley was right, by all rights Whisper should have despised her. "I'm not sure," Whisper admitted. "But it doesn't seem as though you deserve all that's happened to you. I can't imagine that anyone deserves _him._" Contempt crept back into Whisper's voice.

Harley smiled wistfully. "Does anybody really get what they deserve?"

Whisper straightened up. "Mr. Nigma has. Even if he's had to engineer it for himself."

Harley quirked a smile. "You figure he deserves this, then? I..." her smile faded. "I don't like him. The way he seems not to show any emotion...at all. It's unnatural. It's dangerous."

"I've wondered about that myself," Whisper admitted grudgingly. _I can't assuage her fears by ignoring them._ "Sometimes I think that he sacrificed his emotions, so that he could think more clearly and help the world more. So that he feels nothing irrational. Do you see it?"

Harley started giggling again, this time almost maniacally. "Don't _you _see? That's exactly what the Joker's done! Without the pretense of a noble goal, granted. But I can't help but wonder how long Mr. Nigma will hold to pursuing that goal when it's not convenient for him anymore…without any _irrational_ attachments or empathy."

"Convenient?" Whisper asked incredulously. "Do you think all of this has been easy? He's come so far, what would make him abandon his goal?"

Harley frowned, looking thoughtful. "Are those...those androids, like the one he sent to get you...does he control them?"

"He does. It's a very advanced virtual reality system. He created it so he could be physically present without risking his life in chancy situations."

"Well that robot didn't show any emotion at all when you were stabbed."

Whisper shrugged. "My job has a lot of physical perils. We've both discussed the possibility of my death."

"And it doesn't bother you at all that he doesn't care?"

Whisper hesitated. "What do you mean?"

Harley fixed Whisper with a steady gaze and spoke in a soft, sympathetic voice. "He has you do his dirty work. You kill people for him, then you get kidnapped, and he shows up to get you back, but...honestly, I don't know if that was about getting you back at all. You could've been killed. We thought you had been."

Whisper was quiet for a long moment. "That was a more dangerous situation than usual, granted. But he did come for me, and without him, I wouldn't have made it out at all."

Harley bowed her head again at that harsh reminder. "I…I just…"

"What is it?" asked Whisper.

"I can't help but feel we're both screwed either way. It's your heartless boss or my insane one." Harley grinned abruptly. "And you know what the weirdest thing is? I don't think I could go back to normal. After all this, I don't—I don't like it, but I can't imagine being just normal again, having _normal_ concerns..."

Whisper smiled back, though she didn't entirely understand Harley's change of mood. "I understand… my life was never "normal," I suppose, but after getting a taste of this life, it's hard to give it up. I'd find it hard to…I don't know, be a student or something." She leaned back, matching Harley's posture. "So, you say you think we're both screwed. What would you have us do?"

"I don't know. I don't know…" Harley said helplessly, shaking her head.

"You wouldn't want to join m— us, just to try to see what we can do?"

Harley kept shaking her head, more vehemently now. "No. No more killing people! I've had more than enough of that, more than I can take…"

Whisper frowned. "The mob leadership has been destroyed. Once the Joker is dealt with, we won't need to be on an offensive footing anymore."

Harley looked at her. "Do you think that'll make Nigma stop?"

Whisper blinked. _Make him stop? _"He's not like

your Joker. He doesn't enjoy it. When the criminals have been reigned in, he won't need to kill anyone anymore."

Harley laughed again, even harder than before. "And you believe him? Let me tell you...I don't know your Nigma very well, but I've seen a lot of inmates in my time at Arkham. And some of them aren't even insane, some of them are just in there because they're rich, greedy, clever bastards and they faked an insanity plea. Once someone starts killing, once they get to the point where they can do that—they don't stop. It's too addictive, to be able to just remove problems, just like that. He won't stop. Maybe for a little while, but he won't stop killing people to get his way."

"I… I can't see him doing that," said Whisper firmly. "He wouldn't kill people who weren't irredeemable." She paused. "Although," she confessed, very softly, "I've wondered at times about how his past seems to have been just erased." _Why am I telling her this? _Whisper had never before shared this doubt even with Mr. Nigma. _Perhaps because I think she'll understand me, that she won't condemn my doubt because she works for a man who is such a monster…_

"His past has been erased, has it?" Harley murmured. "That would fit…"

Whisper glanced at her in surprise.

Harley shook her head. "Oh, nothing. I just...you do see patterns, in killers. Your Mr. Nigma seems to be a good deal smarter than most of them. But I'm not sure if there is such a thing as a sociopath with a conscience."

Whisper regarded her warily. "Is there anything besides that, that would make you think that he'd really turn on innocent people?"

Harley chuckled. "You mean other than the fact that he already kills people without emotion, puts you in mortal danger without emotion, talks about 'making an example' of my Joker..."

Whisper shook her head. "Can any general consider emotion when ordering his soldiers into battle?"

"Is that how you think of him? As some sort of general?"

"Yes. And I'm the only one he can trust to be his soldier."

Harley bit her lip and regarded Whisper for a long moment. "You don't think he's taking advantage of you?"

Whisper said nothing, but merely returned Harley's gaze. Her expression was studiously blank, hiding the fact that such treacherous thoughts had indeed entered her mind once or twice during her meditations in this room. She'd dismissed them out of hand, chastising herself for such ingratitude. But suddenly, hearing another voice the same concerns, a woman who had herself been taken advantage of by such a heinous criminal…

Harley put her hands to her head in frustration. "There's something _wrong_ with your boss! And I realize how that sounds, coming from me, but if he can't _love_ anybody... Do you know what he told me? He told me he wants to torture the Joker in order to 'enhance his understanding of the cosmic order,' in order to clean some sort of 'blot off the universe.' What else do you think he'd do in order to 'understand?' How can we even _know _what he might think that entails?"

Whisper stopped, not quite able to process what she'd heard. "That's what he said?" _Surely she's paraphrasing._

Harley waved her hands in the air helplessly. "Something like that. It didn't make any sense to me. But he seemed to think it was absurd that I suggested it might be a bad thing to torture anyone, to do something to them so horrible that they'll beg for death to end it." She stopped and took a deep breath. "Whisper...what if—what if he really does?" Harley was working herself near the point of tears again.

Whisper opened her mouth to argue, but Harley shook her head before she could speak. "Never mind… I shouldn't be worried about saving a man who kills and tortures people himself. There is _nothing_ good about him, I shouldn't…" but the last line dissolved into a sob, and Harley curled up and hugged her knees to her chest.

Whisper could not stay away. She pulled the crying woman into an awkward hug. "You really do care for him," she murmured in awe.

To Whisper's pleasant surprise, Harley relaxed a bit in her embrace. "I shouldn't," she murmured miserably. "But thanks."

Whisper pulled back, her face suddenly burning. _What…what am I _doing_?_ "I understand," she managed, struggling for words. "You've been quite close to him for…a while now." Whisper strained her mind, trying to imagine herself in Harley's situation, with Mr.Nigma as the Joker.

"He's just… he's maddening," Harley said, wiping her eyes angrily. " Because you want to save him, but you can't."

Whisper sighed and looked at Harley. "It must be. I can… try to persuade Mr. Nigma to let you go, if you…still want to get away from us."

Harley shrugged. "I don't...I don't even know. What's going to happen, Whisper? Am I the only who has the feeling that the entire city is about to blow up?"

"With the Joker on the loose, you maybe right. Unless Nigma can bring him down in time…"

Harley bit her lip. "Well, I can tell you this. He doesn't go down easily."

"That I know too. Everyone does. If nothing else… I can keep you safe here. If you'll stay."

Harley rubbed her eyes again. "I—I'm tired. I need to think. And sleep. I feel like there's something we're both missing, something everyone's missing..."

"Well, lie down then, and think."

Harley nodded and curled up awkwardly in a corner of the mat. Whisper could not tell if she was truly sleeping, but she seemed to be pretending to be… Whisper got up off the mat, cautiously. Best to leave this poor woman alone for now, to sort up her thoughts.

She sighed, turning back to glance at Harley as she left. She did hope the woman would make it through this unscathed… she truly was an innocent, despite her awful situation. Whisper felt a pang of sadness for her, and for anyone else who might have gotten caught up in all this. So many innocents had died, and she had the awful feeling that more would before it was all over…

Then she turned and started for the door, a new resolve growing in her. She had to know from the Mr. Nigma what this woman's future would be, if she did not comply with his wishes. And perhaps through that she'd have an opportunity to refute—or confirm—Harley's claims about his ruthlessness.

* * *

**Hope **you enjoyed that; I know it was rather long. Please review and tell us what you thought! Tomorrow we move on to new mysteries...


	18. Chapter 18

**By: **Kagmichiru and DracoCron

**Disclaimer: **Nothing belongs to us, except possibly Whisper and some of our own interpretive work.

**Thank** you as always to our reviewers, and we hope you'll bear with us as we continue to juggle lots of action and many viewpoints!

* * *

Bruce Wayne had returned to his penthouse after delivering the Joker to the GCPD, ecstatic and utterly exhausted. He had promised himself that if he managed to take the Joker into prison without incident, he would give Batman the night off.

The Joker's removal and the presumed safe rescue of his hostages had been like a lead weight lifted from Bruce's shoulders. He returned to the penthouse, collapsed on the bed, and did not wake up until Alfred brought his breakfast in the morning.

But breakfast was not the only thing Alfred brought.

"Master Wayne? Master Wayne?"

As soon as Bruce was awake enough to think, he sensed distress in the butler's voice.

He sat up blearily and studied Alfred. The older man gestured to two pieces of paper on the breakfast tray; a newspaper, as was usual, and a note inside a sealed envelope. One cause for concern was immediately apparent. The newspaper's headlines blared: "GIRL HERO: GORDON DAUGHTER SAVES FAMILY, POLICE."

His interest piqued, Bruce reached for the paper and scanned the headline article:

"_The proud members of Gotham City Police Department are thanking their lucky stars for a very special teenage girl. The younger Barbara Gordon, daughter of the GCPD's own Commissioner James Gordon, did not know that she was saving her father's life and those of dozens of officers when she slipped her bonds, freed her mother and brother and led them away from what would soon be the site of a devastating explosion."_

Bruce's mouth went dry. _An explosion?_ He turned the page and found an image of the building's remains; everything above the fourth story was gone, leaving only blackened edges and debris. His eyes jumped to the paragraph next to the photo:

_"The explosive charges were apparently a self-destruct mechanism laid by the Joker, designed to take out any possible invaders to his lair. Police are speculating that they could have been placed on a timer, calculated to detonate after allowing time for law enforcement agents to move onto the scene. Eleven unidentified males were killed, apparently accomplices of the Joker. No female remains have been found, leading to speculation as to the location of Doctor Harleen Quinnzel, the Joker's prison psychiatrist who some have credited with facilitating his escape from Arkham Asylum—"_

He stopped reading and put the paper down. "A trap. Alfred, we didn't even think of it. If Gordon's daughter hadn't escaped, if they'd gone in to make arrests according to plan—"

"It wasn't your fault, Master Wayne," Alfred interjected firmly. "If anything, that's the police department's area. But," he hesitated. "That's not all." Alfred reached down and dislodged the small envelope from under the newspaper. "This was taped to the door when I came in this morning. Someone must have left it for you during the night."

Bruce started to open the envelope and realized his fingers were shaking. There was no one left in Gotham to leave a note taped to his door. No family, no close friends, no one since Rachel—

The letter inside was most definitely not Rachel's handwriting. It was impeccable, looping calligraphy, written in green ink.

"_Bruce Wayne: A riddle for you: How can the one survive the maze of the body after failing to survive the maze of the mind?"_

Alfred watched him read the note apprehensively, wondering what new horrors Gotham could hold for Bruce Wayne and Batman. "What does it say, Master Wayne?"

Bruce was silent for a moment, staring at the letter with a strange expression on his face. "Alfred," he murmured at last. "I think we've found Dr. Quinnzel."

* * *

Harley opened her eyes slowly, feeling the unnatural heaviness of a drugged sleep for the second time in 24 hours. For a full five seconds, she thought she must have been dreaming; the place where she lay now was utterly unfamiliar and weirdly unrealistic. She lay on cold, burnished tiles, the floor of a hallway bathed in dim red light. The color was decidely unsettling, reminiscent of hell and difficult to see by. It sent alarms screaming in her brain. The tiles, she realized, were patterned, much like the ones she'd traversed with Whisper previous night. Was it the previous night? How long had she slept on the futon in Whisper's garden before being drugged and removed? An hour? A day?

She felt a momentary flash of rage towards Whisper and her "master" Nigma. Whisper had seemed so kind, so caring and honest—if badly misguided. But now here Harley was, taken from peaceful slumber in Whisper's quarters to awaken, drugged in what was probably a death trap.

Sitting up, Harley realized what she found so disconcerting about the hallway: there were no doors. It was not so much a corridor as a long passage, completely featureless except for the occasional red light and what appeared to be fire sprinklers on the ceiling. The ceiling, like the walls, appeared to be of the same dull, burnished metal as the floor on which she sat, reflecting the red lights surreally. The lack of doors gave it a disturbing lack of purpose and perspective; it was difficult to gauge distances along the featureless walls, and more disturbing still to contemplate what the passage was designed for.

Hestitantly getting to her feet, she heard the crinkle of paper. She looked down to see a note, neatly folded and pinned to her sleeve. The handwriting, when she opened it, was flawless, looping calligraphy.

_"Harleen Quinnzel, a riddle for you: I am unmoving. Although I am dead, when I move, I am alive. What am I?"_

She stared at the note, a cold feeling growing in the pit of her stomach. She had no idea what the riddle meant, but nothing with that language could have possibly been good.

'_Unmoving'…'dead…' 'When I move, I am alive…' _

Best to get moving, then. With one hand on the wall to steady herself, she crept forward, scrutinizing each tile as she went for any design or irregularity.

So far, so good. She was nearly at the end of the wall, and she could now see that the passage turned sharply to her left a few feet in front of her. She jumped forward, terrified, and lost her footing at the sound of an airy "_hssss_" behind her. She felt cold around her ankles as she fell, and propped herself up to see an opaque mist rising in the passage where she'd awoken. It was the 'fire sprinklers,' in the ceiling, she realized; they were scattering droplets of some kind of liquid, which bloomed into thick, chilly fog when it hit the walls and floor.

_Liquid nitrogen._ She scrambled hastily back to her feet. If she hadn't started moving when she did, she'd have be doused by the ultra-cooled liquid, killed or horribly disfigured by instant frostbite...so that was the kind of man Nigma was. She'd have to keep her wits incredibly sharp to survive this place.

She took a deep breath and turned from the foggy corridor to stare at the passageway beyond her. It was empty, devoid of even the sprinkler-like ceiling fixtures. On the wall directly across from her, she realized, there was a plaque with writing on it. Next to it, resting in a holder, was a cane identical to the one she'd seen the Riddler use. Cautiously she approached the plaque and read:

"_What is seen may be forgotten. What is felt never will be."_

She swallowed. That didn't sound any less ominous than the last riddle. Glancing at the surroundings, she saw no protrusions from the ceiling or walls…but wait. There were black dots, tiny openings in the walls, most of them near the level of the floor. As she watched, a tenuous wisps of nitrogen fog from the sprinklers drifted past her, around her ankles and into the hallway beyond. Where they crossed the holes in the wall, bars of sharp red light were made visible by bouncing off the droplets in the mist.

Harley felt slightly ill. _'What is felt never will be.' Lasers!_

Gingerly, she lifted the question mark cane from its holder by the plaque and inserted its end into the faintly illuminated beam of the laser. Instantly, there was a sound of sizzling and the smell of burning plastic. She lifted it the cane in horror to examine the damage inflicted by the beam. _I didn't even know they made lasers this intense._

Well, she reflected, 'they' probably didn't. But Nigma Corp apparently did.

The nitrogen fog was dissipating now, rendering the lasers invisible again. Harley swung the cane in a slow arch through the air in front of her, her senses attuned for any sign of it encountering one of the deadly beams. _Like a blind man's cane_, she mused,_ except in three dimensions._

It occurred to her as she felt her way along, having barely survived for the second time in 20 minutes, that she had no idea where she was going. Or, for that matter, what she'd find when she reached the end. _If_ she reached the end. Was there an end to this maze? Edward Nigma did not seem the type to let off a person he disliked so easily...

* * *

**And **now, the riddles come in. I must credit my coauthor DracoCron for coming up with them; I'm no good with riddles. Please review!


	19. Chapter 19

**By: **Kagmichiru and DracoCron

**Disclaimer: **Nothing belongs to us, except possibly Whisper and some of our own interpretive work.

**Not **to worry, Gordon lovers; the Commissioner himself will be making an appearance tomorrow!

* * *

It was a pleasant enough morning when John Lehman sat down his work. Making up slogans wasn't a bad job at all, in his estimate; a bit frustrating at times, for the art was not exact, but it sure beat working in the complaints department.

He rifled through his papers and withdrew the latest set of photos. The marketing assignment for this month was a somewhat unconventional one—as were so many of Edward Nigma's pet projects. For some mysterious reason, Nigma had decided that the best way to celebrate the release of his latest line of board games would be with fireworks; lots and lots of fireworks, from the sound of it. The display was supposed to be state-of-the-art and record-breaking, launched from the widest part of the Gotham River so that it would be visible for miles around. It was a bit extravagant, Lehman thought. But then, he wasn't the one in charge…

He looked up from his photos of the barge at the sound of a wet _thwock_ on his office window. _What on Earth…?_

It was not a bird, he saw, but rather a large metallic object that seemed to have stuck itself to the outside of his window with some sort of gel. And there was a thick cord trailing from it.

He stood up, hesitant, and wondered if he should investigate or call security. Normally he'd have thought nothing of it, but Nigma's security measures were so elaborate…perhaps the man really did have enemies.

A faint whirring sound filled the room. It sounded like machinery, and it was getting closer. He took a step back—just as a huge, dark shape flew into view and crashed through the plate glass window.

Lehman dived behind his desk in a flurry of papers. When he finally dared to life his eyes, he stared, trembling, as Batman rose from his office floor to tower over the desk. The caped crusader glanced at him fleetingly, then flung over the office door and stalked out into the hallway.

His heart still pounding, Lehman got unsteadily to his feet and staggered towards the door. In the hallway where Batman had been, file folders were scattered and the secretary who had dropped them was still flattened, wide-eyed against the wall.

Her eyes met his, and she stared at him. "What were you _doing_ in there?"

* * *

Bruce Wayne stalked through the halls of Nigma Corp in full Batsuit armor, noting with slight amusement the chaos being left in his wake. If he'd had his preference, he wouldn't have gone through the building's public area, but this seemed to be the only vulnerable spot. He'd chosen the twelth floor; the uppermost story marked off as office space, right below the first of the unmarked "residential" floors. He'd start his search for Harleen Quinnzel on the next floor up: the thirteenth.

_How appropriate_, he thought. If Nigma's quirky sense of style held, she would be there. If not, there were another 28 floors he might have to search…

At last he came to the elevator, in a public lobby area. The employees were all cowering; no one stood in his way.

Instead of entering the maze of mystifying passcodes, he curled his left hand into a fist. The right glove contained the gas misters; the left extended a metal apparatus that locked itself into the keypad and interfaced with it. Before his eyes the building schematics sprung up, drawn from the information the elevator ran off of. He sent Lucius' hacking program one floor up; a code appeared, copied from the elevator's own computer, and was fed back into it.

Bruce smiled as the elevator doors slid open. This was working so far…

The elevator rose only for a few seconds, then ground to a halt. But when the doors opened again, he was entirely unsure it was where he wanted to be. The only light outside was dim and red, reflecting eerily off of burnished metal surfaces. Bruce frowned. _This is interesting…_

The hall proved to be featureless when he stepped out into it. No doors, no furniture, no decorations; it looked more like an oversized, oddly-lit ventilation shaft. Faintly then, very faintly, a sound reached his ears. It was a distant clatter, and the sound of a female voice. Bruce froze. Where was the sound coming from? He spent another moment listening, then picked a direction and started off.

It wasn't long before he reached an irregularity in the otherwise seamless corridor. Around the corner was a large poster, illuminated to show the vivid blues, greens and whites of a suburban house and lawn on a sunny day. A caption at the bottom read: "I'm poisoned, green, wet, and what?"

_What?_ Bruce stared at the poster for a few seconds before he sensed movement behind him. He ducked and hit the ground, rolling just in time to glimpse an enormous blade sweeping over the corridor perhaps four feet above the ground.

He scrambled along the ground, narrowly avoiding a second blade that swept even lower. When at last he rolled around the next corner, he pressed himself to the ground and waited. No more blades presented themselves.

_So that's Nigma's game, is it?_ If nothing else, he was now more confident than ever that he was on the right level. From there he proceeded creeping, low to the ground and close to the wall. He was sure there were more such traps, and he wanted to find them before they found him.

He turned one corner, then another, without event. On the bright side, nothing had tried to decapitate him in several minutes; but he was no longer at all sure he was still approaching Harleen Quinnzel.

The next corner was a dead end; and on the wall facing him was a large digital clock, counting down from ten. Beneath it blinked the words in red: "Your time is up."

He didn't wait for the readout to finish before throwing himself to one side. And his prescience was rewarded; a few moments later, an enormous razor-edged pendulum swung through the empty corridor, inches from where he'd taken refuge. The pendulum continued to swing back and forth as he inched his way out, slowly, from the dead-end corridor.

Safe again, he retraced his steps in frustration. If these were the obstacles he was encountering, he could only pray Harleen Quinnzel could hold her own until he got to her…

Back at the junction where he'd first turned into the dead end, his ears perked up when he heard a distant clang, followed by a scream. He picked up his pace, paying less heed to potential death traps as he strode toward the source of the calamity. _Just a little longer, Doctor Quinnzel!_

He turned to the right this time instead of left, and his heart leapt to see a slender blonde woman stumbling along the corridor in front of him. She paused, reading a plaque on the wall, as a harsh grinding issued from the corridor ahead. Bruce stopped, uncertain, and then several things happened all at once.

First, the wall behind Dr. Quinnzel began to move. Only gradually did Bruce realize that it was not a wall, but a huge boulder; it started rulling down the hallway like a scene out of Indiana Jones; but this hallway held no refuge. At almost the same instant as the stone began to role, a second dark figure darted past Bruce; this one was a woman, black hair streaming behind her. She grabbed Doctor Quinnzel and pulled on a slight protrusion from the wall that Bruce had not previously noticed; then the two of them vanished as the wall opened behind her.

By this time, he had an idea of his own; he ran back around the corner he'd come from and fired his grappling gun; the adhesive cord stuck to the wall adjacent, and he pulled it tight. When the stone reached the corner, it didn't take much to stop its momentum from turning the corner. He let out a sigh of relief as the giant stone ground to a halt. _My, but isn't Nigma creative…_

He slowly eased up his pressure on the rope, and tried in vain to peer around the corner for any glimpse of Doctor Quinnzel or the mysterious figure who had rescued her. Abruptly, the identity of the second woman clicked into place: Whisper Lieng, Nigma's assassin! He had fought her as Batman; that was why she seemed so familiar.

But whatever she was doing down here, it didn't seem to be serving Nigma's plans; if anything, she seemed intent on foiling them. For if he'd wanted Dr. Quinnzel dead, he need only have left her to be flattened…but the woman who had darted past him seemed intent on saving her.

Bruce considered this for a moment. He was beginning to get the impression that his own chances of survival in this maze were not good, much less his chances of finding Dr. Quinnzel and getting her out alive. Whisper Lieng, on the other hand, seemed to know her way around this place; in this case, Dr. Quinnzel would be safer in her hands than in Bruce's.

Having resolved that, Bruce turned to look back the way he had come. If he could retrace his steps to the elevator…he had another stop to make before he could leave Nigma Corp.

* * *

**Today's **chapter is another little action bite. But don't worry, the plot will be thickening very soon!


	20. Chapter 20

* * *

**By: **Kagmichiru and DracoCron

**Disclaimer: **Nothing belongs to us, except possibly Whisper and some of our own interpretive work.

**Alert! **There may be minor changes made to the preceding chapters over the course of this weekend in order to better accomodate the ending we have in sight!

* * *

Commissioner Gordon stared at the speaker device in his lap, a strange depression gripping him. His family had been rescued. That was something to be happy about, something to be _joyous_ about. The Joker had been captured, nearly 24 hours ago, and he still hadn't managed to escape. That was not just a professional triump for Gordon but a boon for all of Gotham City.

So why did he feel so uneasy?

The preceding day had been one of celebration and recovery. He had not yet resumed his post as police commissioner—not officially, anyway. Everyone had agreed that he needed a day off, to be with his family after their ordeal. And this day had been mostly free of the pressures and concerns of his job.

But now, he contemplated the device in his lap, and he worried.

Perhaps it was a nagging sense that he had crossed a line somehow, accepting Mr. Nigma's assistance to find his family when he was privately certain the man was responsible for murders. Perhaps it was compounded by the whole strangeness of the past week, the uncertainties and the magnitudes of the crimes that had been committed. Whatever the reason, he was no longer sure of the morality of his own actions.

He was least of all certain of what he was about to embark on now. It had been Batman's idea, for one—a man who was very close to being flawlessly heroic, but was nonetheless hunted for murder.

_Those accusations shouldn't haunt me,_ Gordon reprimanded himself. _He didn't kill those people. Harvey did. _He felt pangs at the rememberance of Dent's cruelty before his untimely death. Seeing his family, his little boy again in danger, Gordon shuddered. _Batman saved them. Batman is innocent_.

Yet working with the vigilante behind the GCPD's back still felt like some breach of ethics, some gross moral violation. That, perhaps more than concern for their safety, was why he was listening to this broadcast alone in his car with the windows rolled up.

If it worked, the evidence could prove invaluable to the investigation of Nigma Corp. If it worked _and _he could explain where it came from. Obtaining a wiretapping warrant would not be very difficult, given Nigma's connection to both suspected mob murderers. Explaining who exactly Nigma was conversing with would prove much more difficult.

If it worked. If Batman was able to confront Nigma in the first place.

The reciever in his lap beeped to life suddenly, a bright green light and a harsh beep signaling that Batman had activated the transmitter on his suit.

At first there were violent-sounding mechanical sounds, clanking and hissing and sizzling. Gordon bent over the device, anxious, straining to make out speech.

There was an interlude of silence. When speech did come, it was startlingly clear and chillingly familiar. "Congratulations, Mr. Wayne," came the smooth voice of Edward Nigma out of the small metal speaker. "You're only the fourth person to enter this room alive, and the only one whom I did not invite in."

'_Mr. Wayne?' _Gordon felt a moment of confusion, followed by a thrill of horror and excitement. _Bruce Wayne…yes, of course! _Who else could have produced the Batsuit and Batmobile? And what better cover for a vigilante than that of an empty-headed playboy?

But was Nigma right, or was he guessing?

"You tried to kill Harleen Quinnzel," Batman's distinctive growl came, and Gordon felt another jolt of surprise.

_He did? He has Harleen Quinzell? _The Joker's former psychiatrist had been assumed dead in the blast that had destroyed his hideout and nearly killed the Gordons and a dozen police officers.

"So I did," came the calm response from Nigma. "I'm impressed you were able to decipher my message. But I think the more pertinent question is: why you came to her rescue?"

_He admits to it! _Gordon stared in wide-eyed shock at the speaker in his lap.

"You're a murderer," Batman replied simply. There was a faint hissing sound.

_The sleeping gas? _Gordon wondered. This had not been part of the plan. But then, Batman hadn't mentioned the attempted murder of Dr. Quinnzel either. Perhaps he'd changed his estimation of the Riddler, deemed him too dangerous to be left to normal investigation tactics.

Gordon felt faintly sick, wondering how the police force could possibly deal with Gotham's most popular millionaire turning up unconscious on their doorstep. Unless there was irrefutable evidence that he'd been a danger…

But Nigma's voice came again, unhindered. "You aren't much for conversation when you're under that mask, are you?" the Riddler asked, sounding amused. "But since you are a guest in my home—uninvited, I may add—you would do well to remember your manners."

Gordon was left frowning. Had Nigma somehow resisted the gas's affects? How could he have been prepared for that? For that matter, why didn't he sound surprised—at all—to be encountering Batman on his own turf in the first place?

There came a muffled bang, a loud grunt, and explosion of deafening static. Gordon actually jumped back from the transmitter, panic filling him. Something had struck close to the transmitter; close enough to interfere with it. Had Nigma moved against Batman? Was he _winning_?

"Now, truly," the Riddler's voice came again, crackling and heavily distorted through the damaged speaker. "I had no interest at all in Dr. Quinzell's life or death. What I truly wanted... was you, Mr. Wayne."

There were the sounds of a muffled struggle, then Batman's gruff voice: "You'll never get away with this."

Gordon's heart sank. That could only be a response to defeat. This could not end with another hostage situation. It could not end with _Batman_, Gotham's last resort to _resolve_ hostage situations, in the clutches of a man who was clearly more dangerous than anyone knew.

"How can you say that, when you don't even know what I intend to get away with?" the Riddler's voice was sharp-edged with amusement.

"The mayoral election," Batman asserted. "The people of Gotham won't elect a murderer."

"Correction: They will not elect a _known_ murderer. After all... as far as they know, those murders were committed by that poor lost soul, Whisper, sponsoring herself with the aid of a mob mole. As for you... you will, of course, have to die. But it will not be in vain. In fact, your last act will be to help me bring about the final destruction of our mutual friend, the Joker."

Gordon listened in growing horror. The death of Batman? The 'final destruction' of the Joker? How did Nigma plan to accomplish that, with the Joker in police custody? Gordon's hand reached for his cell phone, but he stopped it. He could not warn them, at least not until he had a half-credible excuse for how he got the information.

"Why would you do that?" Batman asked, quietly. Gordon felt a surge of gratitude for the man; even in personal danger, Batman was clearly probing for information for the benefit of Gordon and the police.

"Come now, Mr. Wayne," Nigma's voice sounded infinitely condescending.  
"Would you tolerate that slime having the run of this city if it belonged to you?"

"You," Batman spat, "don't seem to have any problem murdering innocents."

"Innocents?" The Riddler scoffed. "What do you care about crime bosses and the hangers-on of terrorists?"

Batman exhaled sharply. "Harleen Quinzell is the Joker's hostage."

The Riddler sighed. "Hostage, or accomplice? Ask yourself that, Mr. Wayne. If it helps your opinion of me, all of my attempts to murder innocents have failed. Not only did you and Whisper save Dr. Quinnzel, but the Gordons escaped the Joker's hideout before my Puzzle Boxes could kill them."

Gordon nearly retched. _Nigma _had been responsible for the explosions that destroyed the building? Gordon knew he had trusted Nigma too easily. If Barbara had not escaped and met them halfway—

Batman sounded as shocked as Gordon. "You!" he nearly roared.

"You can see, can you not," Nigma continued calmly, "how if they all died, the latest victims of the Joker, martyrs to the cause of order... how they would be so much more useful to my crusade against crime than if they were alive? Their deaths would be the catalyst to allow me to explore a whole new kind of order."

"Don't talk like some sort of savior, Nigma," Batman snarled. "You're scum who murders to enhance your own reputation."

"Partly," Nigma said, utterly unconcerned. "However, do not doubt that I have a higher goal in mind." There was a pause, and then he said, "But before that, there's one thing I'm curious about..."

There was another pause, then a whirring sound, disturbingly reminiscent of a dentist's drill. It merged into a harsh, grating scraping. There came a loud, metallic clatter, and then silence.

"It seems," Nigma's voice came, quietly triumphant, "that I have accomplished what not even the Joker could. I've unmasked the Batman."

As Gordon leaned even closer, a quiet, tired voice said: "You won't get away with this, Nigma. Even if I'm dead, the people will know."

Gordon's throat seized up. That was not the voice of Batman. It was the voice of a normal man, a young man from the sound of it. And Nigma had not revised his estimate of Batman's identity.

_Bruce Wayne…_Gordon's head spun thinking about it.

"I think not," the Riddler replied, smirking. "You place far too much trust in the abilities of Gordon and his precious legal system. They couldn't even take down the Joker, couldn't even rescue Gordon's own family, without my assistance. Their investigation will come to nothing. I'll make sure of it."

"And what," came the defeated sounding voice of Bruce Wayne, "are you going to do with me?"

"I'm going to use you as bait to lure the Joker to me," said the Riddler simply.

There was the sound of a snort, of laughter. "You really think he'll come when you call him?"

"With your life—excuse me, _Batman's_ life on the line? I think he will."

Bruce Wayne's voice was quiet now, but confident. "I think you'll be disappointed."

"And why is that?" Nigma couldn't seem to stop pressing the point.

_He's not confident_, Nigma realized. _He isn't sure what the Joker will do_. And Gordon wondered if Batman/Bruce Wayne was right, or if he was merely trying to frustrate Nigma's plan.

"Have you met this guy?" Bruce Wayne asked, faint irony in his voice.

"I have," said the Riddler. "Better than that, I've spoken to his psychiatrist. He won't be able to bear to let you die. You're too much 'fun' for him."

"And the moment he thinks you have him figured out," Bruce Wayne insisted, "he'll throw you a curveball. That's how the Joker is. How do you think he escaped Arkham? You think the people there didn't have him 'figured out?'"

Gordon thought he heard a tiny sigh from the Riddler. "The greatest foolishness of the Joker is that he truly believes in chaos. There is no chaos, Mr. Wayne, only different patterns of order. The Joker is as ordered as any other, simply in a different way than most. I know him as I know you, as I know Gordon, Quinnzel, and Whisper."

Batman laughed again. "I'm sure you _think_ you do."

"And you think that I do not. No matter," said the Riddler. "Do excuse me, Mr. Wayne. I have a traitorous servant and her compatriot to deal with. However... I can't really run the risk of letting you escape, so I'll let you rest."

There was a faint, zinging, _thwip_ noise, then the hissing sound of a door sliding shut.

* * *

A small section of the Gotham County Prison had been specially fortified in the aftermath of the police station bombing. It was a haphazard fortification, forced by necessity, consisting mostly of extremely tightened security. The small corner temporarily designated as "holding" was literally crawling with guards.

And of course, the Joker thought, that was where they had decided to put him. It was not unexpected—it only made sense, after all, to designate him for the "maxi" wing. But that was the one ill side affect of bombing the GCPD headquarters in the first place; Gordon no longer needed to keep him near the recent arrestees, and that significantly cut down his chances of escape.

Not that he had given up. He still had no confidence in the ability of the GCPD to keep him locked up permanently. For one, the cell he was in was hardly airtight; he probably could've been out in a few hours, given that he was unobserved while he worked on the bars. But he never _was_ unobserved in this madhouse, and there were so many cops around that even if he could get a jump on one of them, he'd have guns trained on him from all angles. In this throng not even a hostage situation would end well.

But an opening would present itself. Eventually, they'd have to move him—probably sooner rather than later, given his notoriety. And in the meantime he'd been passing his time playing mind games with the security officers as best he could. Unfortunately, the crowdedness worked against him here too; the fools were less easily manipulated when the eyes of their peers were on them.

Too bad…it had been 24 hours, and he was growing extremely restless.

He almost—_almost—_had to admire the Batman's ingenuity in bringing him down. The method wasn't very fun, nor was it very sporting; but it worked, and that was what counted. At least that was _half_ of what counted. The Joker wasn't sure he'd be able to forgive his nemesis if he used exactly the same trick twice.

The Batman had come very close to falling for his trap, this time. It was sheer luck that the Joker had gone down before the Batman had walked close enough for him to press the trigger switch. One of these days, he vowed, one of these days he _would_ immobilize the Batman and get to have some _fun_ with him.

Very, very shortly…very shortly after getting out…

The Joker's thoughtstream was broken as he noticed irregular movement in the crowd outside his cell. Studying the traffic patterns for hours had made him alert to the usual ebb and flow of people; and there was one officer approaching who didn't fit into the normal rhythm. The man was approaching briskly, keeping his head down and his uniform cap pulled low. He appeared to be heading _past_ the Joker's cell, but the Joker knew better. That one was not a cop. His face was delightfully familiar.

Diego brushed past the Joker's cell without breaking his façade; he did not pause, did not even glance at its occupant. But as he passed, he unobtrusively tossed a small package from his back pocket and through the bars. Burning with curiousity, the Joker picked it up.

What was going on here? Had his prodigal henchman decided to redeem himself by rescuing the boss he had betrayed? _Nah_, _never_. There was something more interesting going on here. Something far more interesting…

Whatever it was would have to work quickly. Passing officers were staring, suspicious. The Joker opened the small note that was attached to the package.

In green, looping calligraphy, it said:

"_What you have failed to do to Him, I have done. What you have never tried to do with Him, I will do. Come to artery of Gotham's second sister, if you are to to contradict me."_

"Ooh-ooh-_ooh_," the Joker murmured in appreciation of the riddle. _Three guesses as to who wrote this. _But who on Earth was the "He?" it referred to? There was only one "he" of mutual importance to the two of them, really only one "he" of _any _importance at all to the Joker. Could it be…?

He pulled the twine holding the package together, and a handful of small metal objects fell out. The Joker's face was split by an uncontrollable grin. Half a dozen tiny but potent explosive charges! And he knew they were potent because they were not just _any_ explosive charges; these bore the mark of the Bat symbol, carved into titanium.

There was shouting outside his cell. "Hey! What've you got there?"

The Joker glanced up to see another burly policeman approaching, Diego having vanished as swiftly as he'd come. The idiots outside his cell had finally noticed he had something he shouldn't have.

He brandished one of the charges, grinning, and pressed down to activate it. "Catch!" he shouted gleefully, and tossed it through the bars.

* * *

**There **we go! Last new installment for this week, anyway. Thanks as always to our reviewers. Please let us know what you think of how the story's progressing!


	21. Chapter 21

**By: **Kagmichiru and DracoCron

**Disclaimer: **Nothing belongs to us, except possibly Whisper and some of our own interpretive work.

**We're** gonna try our best to keep up the rate of posting every weekday, but it's becoming difficult as we approach the climax!

* * *

The elevator slowed to a smooth stop as it hit the fortieth floor, and Whisper stepped out of it, striding briskly. She didn't want to slow down, didn't want to give herself time to have second thoughts about what she'd just done until the two of them were safe in her garden. Behind her, Harley followed in her footsteps with intent concentration. Whisper punched the passcode to open the doors and immediately went to her mat, kneeling down and slowly running her hands over her face and through her hair.

_What have I done? What have I done? _Why_ did I do it? And why would Nigma…why would he…_

She realized suddenly that Harley had taken a place next to her on the mat. "You… you saved me," the other woman said quietly, puzzled gratitude in her voice. "Why?"

Whisper continued running her hands anxiously through her hair, trying to center herself and slow her racing mind. "Because...Mr. Nigma said that he was using you as bait for the Joker, that he didn't mean for you to be harmed. But I was afraid that you'd try to make it through the maze yourself, and—and that something would happen to you." Abruptly, she rounded on Harely. "And I was right! You tried to flee and you were almost killed! Why did you move from the spot where he left you?! You _knew_ the maze was lethal!"

Harley raised her hands in defensive surprise. "How was _I_ supposed to know that moving would be more lethal than staying put? He put me in a maze, I assumed something bad would happen if I didn't find my way out of it!"

Whisper glared at her for a few more seconds, then lowered her gaze in defeat. "I'm sorry," she muttered. "I know you weren't trying to kill yourself. I just…I just wish you'd stayed put." she finished miserably. And she knew, in the back of her mind, that any reasonable person would have done what Harley did. It could be reasonably assumed that staying put in a death trap would be suicide. But why…why, why, why had Nigma put her there, if her movement could have resulted in her blood on his hands?

Harley seemed to sense Whisper's inner turmoil. "Don't worry," she murmured. "I know how you feel. I—and thank you, for saving me!" She took Whisper's hand in hers and pressed it, as though to physically impress her sincerity.

Whisper didn't reply. She tried not to look at the other woman.

"You…weren't supposed to do that, were you?"

Whisper shook her head. "No. No, I wasn't. If you'd told me that I would end up betraying Mr. Nigma even yesterday, I would never have believed you."

"'Betraying him?'? Harley asked, scowling. "Did he _need_ me to die?"

"No, of course not! All he needed was for you to be trapped long enough for the Joker to come save you. But that didn't happen, and I intervened before—"

Suddenly, Harley burst out laughing. "He tried to net the Joker and Batman showed up instead…that must be an interesting dilemma. That's like putting out bait to catch fish and getting…well, a bat." She sobered slightly. "Batman…who do you think will win? Your boss, or Batman?"

"The Riddler will, unquestionably." Whisper was solemn. "On any other field of battle I'd give it to Batman, but this is Nigma's domain. All Batman has to do is misstep and he'll be in a world of trouble. The place couldn't be designed better if Nigma had been _planning _for him to invade."

Harley was silent at that. "If.._if _Batman loses…what do you think will happen to him?"

"He'll probably to Batman the same thing he did to you," Whisper explained, "but he'll use more restraints. If he can use Batman as bait for the Joker, that's still his ultimate goal." She frowned then, and hesitantly voiced one of her darker thoughts. "Restraints… it's odd that he didn't restrain you. If he didn't want you to wander…and I'd expect that any prisoner would."

Harley raised an eyebrow. "Odd? I'm guessing that's not 'odd in a good way?'"

Whisper shook her head. "I…I don't know yet. Thinking of Mr. Nigma as—questioning him at all is new to me. I've always…trusted his plans before."

Harley favored Whisper with an easy, crooked grin. "Welcome to my world." She paused, then, her smile fading. "Batman...if Nigma's smart enough to use him as bait, Batman is the best—maybe the _only_ bait he could've asked for. The Joker wouldn't have walked into a trap for me. He would for the Batman."

Whisper stared at Harley for a moment in silent incredulity. "He wouldn't come for you? You defended the Joker and saved his life, and he wouldn't come to get you back?"

Harley shrugged slightly and bowed her head. "I don't think so. Not unless he had something up his sleeve. Maybe it's better for your Mr. Nigma that he didn't come...I'm sure he would've brought the house down if he did."

Whisper smirked. "_This_ building? I think not."

Harley shook her head, grinning faintly again. "You might be surprised. He…consistently defies expectations. But hopefully we'll never have to find out if he could or not." Then she paused. "If you've betrayed Mr. Nigma… are we safe here anymore? Should we be moving out, or…?"

Whisper sighed. "No, we should stay here. I seriously doubt he'll harm either of us as it is. I've served him for years, and he's never shown me any unkindness. When he comes, I'll explain. Moving from here would only look suspicious."

Harley gave a tiny scoff. "How serious are these doubts of yours? Because after our little 'maze adventure'—"

Abruptly, Whisper closed her eyes and flung herself back on the mat. "Honestly, I don't know what to think anymore. All I know is..." She swallowed in sudden nervousness, struggling with herself. "All I know," she said in a strained voice, "is that I don't want you to get hurt." Once the words were out of her mouth, she let out a heavy sigh. She'd never professed care or loyalty before, to anyone but Nigma. Now, finding herself with the urge to do so felt…odd, strangely difficult and dangerous.

She turned to see that Harley had blushed pink. "Th—thanks," the other woman stammered. Then, even softer: "It's more than I did for you."

Whisper rose to a sitting position, smiling at Harley. "Don't worry about it. I know better than anyone what it's like to be scared and confused like that. To be surrounded by chaos…"

Harley laughed harshly. "I'm not sure I deserve that much credit."

Whisper's expression softened. "There are a lot of things you don't deserve, Harley, but credit isn't one of them. I can see it in you. You have a strong spirit, it was just pulled into the wrong circumstances." _And I…_ but she wouldn't allow herself to finish that thought.

Harley let out a helpless little giggle. "No, I put it there. I put _myself_ there. I should have known better, I really should have. I should have known that if a man like that was…dangerous. I should've known something was wrong, when I enjoyed being with him..."

"But now," said Whisper firmly, "You can correct any errors you made. And... I don't know what Mr. Nigma will do when he finds out I've disobeyed him, but I promise to help you to the very best of my ability."

"That's assuming that either of us survives," remarked Harley, leaning her head back on the mat.

"Why wouldn't we?"

Harley grinned at her. "You—you remind me of me, do you know that? When I first met him, when I first let him out, I didn't realize how bad he was. I thought I'd done all the calculations, but I was wrong. It's impossible to really get it through your head until you see them in action."

Whisper closed her eyes. "Do you really think…Mr. Nigma is as bad as the Joker?"

"I don't know. But I'll tell you one thing, _normal_ men do not hire assassins." She paused. "It's...it's funny, they almost do remind me of each other." She giggled suddenly. "Have you noticed the color schemes?"

"I did, actually," said Whisper, smiling reluctantly, even as her lower lip trembled. Purple and green…green and purple. Nigma's flawless, unchanging appearance against the Joker's intentional mask of ruin and death. Chaos versus order…they were disturbingly precise opposites, but she was no longer sure of Nigma's complete benignity.

Whisper dropped her head into her hands and didn't move for a long time.

Harley leaned over her, clearly concerned. "It'll be okay," she said, and wrapped her arms around Whisper in a timid embrace. "Your Mr. Nigma," she whispered, at least _looks_ sane on the outside."

Whisper looked up and let out a shuddering sigh. "What's happening to me, Harley? Ever since he found me, I knew that I was in the right place, for the right reasons, but now..." she shook her head and splayed her empty palms, afraid to finish the sentence.

"I think everybody feels like that sometime," said Harley, laying her hand on one of Whisper's.

"I just never thought it could happen to me again," said Whisper quietly, leaning into Harley's hug. Despite everything else, the embrace was comforting. She realized suddenly that she couldn't remember being embraced by another human being before. Nigma had been a father to her, an older brother, and entire family…but he always kept his distance. She wasn't sure she'd ever seen him display physical affection.

"Again?" Harley asked her softly.

"Do you remember?" Whisper asked her. "Back in my old life..." she shuddered, "I had no idea of anything; I had no purpose, I didn't think the _world_ had a purpose, often I wasn't even sure what was real and what wasn't... I don't ever want to go back to that. I couldn't take it."

Harley nodded. "I remember. I'm just thinking...thinking that it's the first time for me I've had my world fall apart, and that I managed to screw it up all for myself." She smiled painfully. "But I think you're much better off this time." She paused. "Is… is Nigma truly your only reason for being?"

"For the longest time, he was," Whisper replied. "I just wonder... what it would be like to have another reason for being." The thought felt almost blasphemous, but under circumstances, blasphemy might become necessary.

Harley smiled. It was a real, genuine smile, different from the sardonic humor Whisper had seen her display before." Harley said softly.

Whisper returned the smile, overjoyed to see any trace of the Joker's presence wiped away from Harely's manner. "Just so," she agreed. "But…" She swallowed, suddenly feeling, in a low-key way, more nervous then she'd been in a long time. _Just say it_, she told herself. _It's time to tell her._

Harley frowned concernedly. "What's wrong?"

Whisper opened her mouth, but at that exact moment, the door hissed quietly open.

The Riddler stepped through. He was calm, but his prescence colder and more intimidating than Whisper had ever seen him before. Her blood chilled.

"I thought I would find you both here," he said curtly. "Please explain."

"Master!" Whisper found her voice weak. "I…" Explanations and excuse began to flood her brain, but she found herself unable to utter a word of them.

Harley grabbed tightly onto Whisper's arm. "I think this is the part where we run."

The Riddler turned to her, and Whisper felt a surge of fear. "On the contrary," he said, pointing his cane at Harley, "you will remain where you are."

Harley's eyes were darting frantically around. "Whisper, tell me this place has a fire escape!"

Whisper quickly shook her head, stunned and frustrated. _Surely he wouldn't…why is she acting this way?_

The Riddler turned to Whisper and smiled.

"I admit, you disappointed me, Whisper," he said. "It appears that the Joker's disciple has deduced before you did that I intended to kill her all along. I knew that the Joker would never rescue her; the man has made it clear that he's incapable of caring for another human being. All I needed you for was to attract Batman. I _did_ desire, Dr. Quinnzel, to try to bring you over to my cause. But when that failed, you could hardly be allowed to stay here. I noticed right away that you threatened Whisper's loyalty to me; a skill learned from your master, no doubt. And that simply could not be allowed."

Harley straightened up, her fists balled. "Then punish me," she demanded. "Don't punish Whisper for being a decent person!"

The Riddler raised his cane towards Harley, and a bolt discharged from its tip. There was a sizzling noise and Harley stumbled backward, emitting a squeak of surprise as she fell on her rump.

"Be silent," said the Riddler calmly.

Whisper, shook her head and rose from her stunned state. A protest began to form on her lips, but the Riddler turned his cane towards her and emitted another discharge She gritted her teeth as she felt the electrical bolt course through her body, falling to the ground beside Harley.

"Now then..." the Riddler continued, his tone satisfied. "I admit I didn't count on Whisper coming to rescue you before my maze had a chance to kill you. And sadly, if she was willing to compromise her loyalty to me despite the trust I have already shown her, she is now a threat.

"Although I do have a few things to thank you for, Dr. Quinnzel. Though you failed to attract the Joker, I have you to thank for the fact that the Batman is currently in my custody. I'm sure he'll prove to be much more…efficient bait, than you did. And," he smiled broadly, "thanks to you, I know how to trap the Joker in a living Hell."

Whisper groaned quietly, lifting her head to see Harley shaking her own head in dismay. As she got her bearings back, she looked up at the Riddler, who had withdrawn a small metal box from inside his jacket. The device was horrifyingly familiar.

"You have both proved extraordinarily useful for me. And now…" he said quietly, "not without regret, I must kill you both." He dropped the puzzle box to the floor with a clatter, turned on heel, and left.

For what seemed like an eternity Whisper lay immobile, staring at the box. _He couldn't have…he _wouldn't.

Harley struggled onto all fours and grabbed Whisper's arm, shaking it roughly. "Come _on!_"

Still numb and unthinking, Whisper allowed herself to be dragged onto her feet and back through the greenery, away from the deadly box.

As Harley led her, struggling through one of the dense, vine-laden paths, there was the sound of a searing explosion. Distantly she felt the heat as a cloud of napalm blossomed from the area where they had just been, gold and orange fire blossoming through the trees.

_My plants…my poor, innocent plants._

Harley turned Whisper around to stare in her face, shaking her shoulders roughly. "What do we do? What do we _do_? Come on, I know you're traumatized here, but I don't want to die!"

That last line broke through into her consciousness, and she felt herself go into combat mode. This was no longer her garden, burning, destroyed by her master's own hand. This was a combat situation, and the enemy had gotten the advantage…

"I have weapons!" she shouted over the growing roar of the flames, dragging Harley towards her cache of supplies. "In here!" Nigma must not have taken into account her stockpile of equipment for the missions he sent her on. Or…or perhaps he had, and he knew they wouldn't save her. Whisper beat the thought back, refusing to accept it.

"We might be able to get past these windows! Get to that corner over there!" she directed Harley, pointing.

As Harley complied, sprinting, Whisper pulled aside a false bush to reveal a small, metal chest. She opened it and removed two of the question mark tranquilizer pistols, two small grappling guns, and an explosive Puzzle Box. She attached the Box to the window, quickly setting the timer, and ran to join Harley outside the perimeter of the explosion. She covered her ears and threw herself to the ground, turning just in time to see the reinforced glass shattering.

Harley laughed triumphantly as the smoke cleared, revealing blue sky beyond. "You did it!" she clapped her hands together. We're out! Now just tell me it isn't twenty stories to the ground."

Whisper paused, wincing. "Actually, it's forty."

Harley giggled abruptly, then clapped a hand over her mouth. "Sorry," she muttered, "Nervous reaction. So...uh, how did you manage this last time you were trapped in a room and one of those things exploded?"

"I used an extension cord. Unfortunately, I don't have any of those here—and I don't think that the vines in this room that are still intact will reach that far." Whisper looked at Harley, fighting back panic as she considered their options.

Harley was staring at the smoke gathering at an alarming rate below the greenhouse's domed ceiling. "Whisper… how far is it if we go _up_?"

* * *

**This **scene was rather fun to write; we hope you enjoyed it! Please review! No worries for Gordon and Joker fans; we'll be back to them tomorrow.


	22. Chapter 22

**By: **Kagmichiru and DracoCron

**Disclaimer: **Nothing belongs to us, except possibly Whisper and some of our own interpretive work.

**It's **short, I know, but things are about to get very interesting!

* * *

Gordon headed straight for the GCPD's improvised headquarters at County. Legalities be damned; the DA and the rest of the GCPD had to hear this recording _now_, before it was really too late...

He pulled up in front of the building and brandished the recorder in front of him, mentally preparing his speech to get the DA to listen to it. But halfway into the building, he froze; the glass doors were thrown open, and smoke was pouring out through them.

"Help!" a woman shrieked, stumbling out of the building, half-choking with smoke inhalation. She was covered in splatters of something reddish-brown that looked disturbingly like…

"Someone help! They—they—" she broke down sobbing.

Gordon pocketed the recorder and sprinted up the steps, his urgency now redirected. He stared in disbelief and tried not to imagine what carnage must have lay inside, how many dangerous criminals may have escaped in the chaos…

_Again…with all the security? It can't possibly be happening again!_

He rushed forward to assist the people who were stumbling, coughing and choking out of the smoke. With great difficulty he restrained himself from rushing into it to offer his help. He'd be more likelyto become a victim himself in need of rescue, and he could not risk it so soon after having his family returned to him safely…

But it was maddening. Absolutely maddening. And he had a horrible feeling he knew who was responsible.

'_I'm going to use you as bait to lure the Joker to me.'_

And to come to Nigma, the Joker had to be out of prison first. It was as Gordon had feared, and he hadn't made it in time to stop it.

As sirens wailed in the distance, he slowly turned and walked back to his car. He dialed the District Attorney's office on his cell phone, slowly. "Yes, this is Police Commissioner Gordon. I need to speak to the DA. _Now_. There has already been a bombing, and there are still lives at risk."

* * *

The Joker whistled merrily as he strode away from the wreckage of what had been his cell—and what, for that matter, had been County Prison. Three charges had been more than enough to make his getaway—and enough to cause a little fun on the side. The police would be tied up for hours, now, cleaning up the remains of their comrades and scrambling to round up whatever inmates had taken advantage of his little disruption to make escapes of their own. That would make things easier. Without henchmen at his immediate disposal, he wanted as few obstacles in his way as possible.

'_The artery of the second sister_.' That was clear enough. "Artery" could only refer to the Gotham River—the same body of water, he remembered, which had nearly claimed his life in the midst of his escape from Arkham. But it had also given him Dr. Harleen Quinnzel; the accident had given her a debt to him, and strengthened her affection exponentially.

_Harley…_what had become of his pretty little toy? He hadn't seen her in the prison—not that he'd had the opportunity to look very thoroughly, but come to think of it, he hadn't seen _any_ of his former associates. It made sense that they kept him far removed from holding, but something didn't feel right about it…

He had some catching up on current events to do anyway. By now he had wound around the city block that contained the prison, weaving through narrow alleys between building rather than emerging onto the street. As much _fun _as it would have been to confront the cops with explosives again, he wanted to save a couple of them—just in case.

He glanced around for any sign of a police presence; there was none. That was good. With luck it'd take them at least half an hour to reorganize well enough to form a perimeter around the area, and if he wasn't lucky…well, then he'd just have to make a few more things go boom.

He strode easily onto the sidewalk, still whistling. There was a man heading towards him, intently reading a newspaper while he walked. How convenient. He snatched the paper from the man as he walked by with a cheery "Thank you!"

He sensed the man stop in his tracks, indignant. "Hey!" There was a moment of shocked pause, then the sound of running footsteps as the man realized his offender was a green-haired man in a soot-covered prison uniform.

_The orange does go nicely with the hair, _the Joker noted, glancing down at himself. That might be interesting to remember when he got his next set of clothes made…

On the street corner, a woman was waiting at the bus stop, engrossed in a conversation she was having on her cell phone. The Joker took a seat next to her calmly and tapped her politely on the shoulder.

"Excuse me, miss. Could I, ah, borrow your lipstick?"

The woman didn't even scream. She did a double-take, then simply froze, staring in open-mouthed disbelief at the apparition beside her.

"Miss, ah, really. I just need a _little_ touch-up—"

_Now_ she screamed. She dropped her cell phone, shoved her purse into his hands, and fled, stumbling in her heels and twisting an ankle as she ran.

He shrugged and turned his attention from the whimpering woman to the cell phone she had discarded. Rummaging through her purse, he found the desired scarlet lipstick and a makeup compact that included a mirror. He flipped it open and was pleased to note that a grey-white dust from the explosion coated not on only his uniform, but also his face. A decent, if imperfect proxy for greasepaint; it was certainly better than nothing, anyway. The red lipstick went on thick and sloppy as he dialed a cab service on the cell phone.

"Yes, I'm on Fourth Street. All the way to the dock, please. And could you make it quick? I _do_ tip well."

* * *

**Please **review and let us know how we're doing! And everyone send us good vibes so we can finish the next chapter in time to post it on schedule tomorrow!


	23. Chapter 23

**By: **Kagmichiru and DracoCron

**Disclaimer: **Nothing belongs to us, except possibly Whisper and some of our own interpretive work.

**Thanks**as always to our lovely reviewers! Your feedback is very helpful to us.

* * *

The Joker perused the pages of the newspaper while he waited for his cab to arrive. It was an unusually interesting edition of the Gotham Times—thanks in part, he was pleased to note, to his own contributions.

The headline article was a ridiculously indulgent "town hero" story about Gordon girl, who, if he recalled, had not been so heroic when he'd seen her face-to-face. However, he did have to give her credit for engineering her family's escape from the explosion that had later demolished the lair. He was actually glad they had escaped; it would've seemed a waste of good hostages to have them killed by an explosion that was not even orchestrated by their kidnapper.

He knew who had really done it, of course. _Not too subtle, Nigma. _Especially the riddle; the newspaper mentioned fireworks that had blossomed in the sky in the midst of the explosion; '_Why mI so serious?' _Any idiot would've realized there was a hidden message there. But then, the Gotham City Police Department _was_ comprised of idiots.

_No female corpses found_, he noted. He was glad of that also; he might never have forgiven Nigma if he ruined his pet Joker. _My_ _Har-har-ley, where are you? _She'd been in the lair when Batman arrived. Had she finally grown a backbone and fled as soon as he was incapacitated? Unlikely; she surely wouldn't have left without the hostages. Then had she been arrested? No, that would have made its way into the newspaper. Unless the police were keeping it secret for some reason…

The Joker's gut told him there was something more going on here, but he couldn't quite place what it was.

He finished the headline article and scanned the entire paper, entertainment section included, for any relevant or interesting happenings. His quest was rewarded; a byline in the "Events and Entertainment" section contained the name "Nigma."

_'Nigma Corp Superbarge to Light Up the Sky With Record Fireworks Display.' _

The Joker's lips curled into a slow smile. Fireworks on the river. It was perfect.

'_Come to the artery of the second sister…'_

Batman would be on the barge. And the Joker would have to play his cards carefully; if fireworks and his own lair were any indication, the barge would be rigged to explode.

_I hope the Bat can swim._

His ears perked up slightly as he heard sirens wail in the distance. Those weren't heading for the scene of the fire—were the police finally forming a perimeter? _That damned cab driver had better show up soon…_

As if on cue, a yellow vehicle turned the corner. The Joker kept his face buried in the newspaper to avoid frightening off the driver. The driver slowed and stared at him, but, lured by money, he wasn't about to pass up a good fare. The Joker managed to keep his face hidden in the paper until he was actually inside the car—then he pulled out one of the charges and waved it in the driver's face.

"See this? You probably recognize me. Yeah, you do. So see this? It's a bomb. And if you take me to the dock nice and easy, I won't set it off in here. I'm not interested in blood today."

The petrified driver did as he was told, with the Joker keeping a 'reassuring' hand on his shoulder for the entire length of the route. They passed two cop cars with sirens blaring, and he felt the car slow perceptibly; but always the unspoken threat of death at the hands of the infamous Joker prevailed.

_It's true what they say,_ the Joker reflected. _Do what you do well enough and you're name's like gold._

The Joker shoved the bus stop woman's purse into the cab driver's lap when the car pulled up at the dock. _I _do_ tip well._ He was not concerned about either the money or the driver's knowledge of his whereabouts; after all, he'd soon be departing from the dock, and it wasn't as though the police didn't already know he was at large.

The Joker strolled down the dock, listening to the screech of tires as the cab sped away. He scanned the boats lined up for anything unusual, or anything—green! At the end of the dock was a small speedboat, painted in the same distasteful green as the Riddler's trademark suit. The Joker laughed out loud in appreciation as he approached it; a daintily hung sign on the boat's mooring read: _'Reserved for villains.'_

He hopped onboard and began to explore.

The boat was small, sturdy and standard issue, devoid of contents except for a copy of the Gotham Times—_sorry Nigma, I beat you to it—_a GPS locator attached to the motor, which presumably contained the location of the barge, and a small metal box underneath that was almost certainly an explosive intended to scuttle the boat after the Joker's arrival on the barge. _Well that's not very sporting of him, _he reflected. _To rig the barge to explode _and_ scuttle the motorboat…_

But it was a lot more interesting than anything Batman or the police had cooked up for him so far.

* * *

It was a lovely day, sun shining over the water as Edward Nigma awaited the Joker's arrival. News on a small pocket radio told him that his message had been received and acted upon: the county prison was in flames. There was still the possibility—the _slight_ possibility—that the Joker would not take him up on his challenge. But Nigma was confident; everything he'd learned from the officers who had observed the Joker's first interrogation suggested that Batman was immensely, vitally important to him.

Behind the Riddler, Bruce Wayne was stirring.

He lay within the multicolored, transparent alloy of the cube at the center of the barge. It was a giant glass rubix cube balanced gracefully on one corner. It gleamed in the sunlight, multicolored and lovely against the powder blue sky. The thing was designed to appear as an artistic gesture; and indeed it was presently little more than that, its mysterious internal machinery lying dormant in wait.

Wayne had been stripped of most of the components of his Batsuit; they'd all had to come off, actually, to be searched for hazardous contents while he was unconscious. Only then did the Riddler return the parts of the costume deemed harmless, mostly for dramatic affect. The Joker wouldn't but it in the least if the Riddler presented him with a dazed and half-naked Bruce Wayne. He had even returned Batman's mask—after disabling any electronic circuits within it, of course.

His prisoner was now slowly lifting himself from his awkward position at the intersection of the cube's sloping walls. He looked around wildly and pounded on the walls—only to make the frustrating discovery that his armored gloves were gone. Those had been unsalvagably dangerous.

"Glad to see you're awake, Mr. Wayne," Nigma greeted him cordially.

The largely declawed Batman stared at him, his posture unmistakably hostile.

The Riddler turned away to face the water. "Come now, Mr. Wayne. You can't actually disagree with this course of action?"

Batman said nothing.

The Riddler sighed. "Very well. It should at least bring you peace that the Joker will be off your streets for good, even if it is at the cost of your own life. That's what you wanted, isn't it?"

Wayne balled his fists, still staring at the Riddler. "Not like this."

Nigma shook his head at the caped crusader's stubbornness and turned back to look over the water.

* * *

**Feedback**is appreciated, as always. It looks like we'll be managing to keep up post-a-day for the rest of this week, but next week may see a slow-down.


	24. Chapter 24

**By: **Kagmichiru and DracoCron

**Disclaimer: **We own nothing, except possibly Whisper and some of our own interpretive work.

**Thanks **again to all our reviewers for their suggestions! We're trying to tread a fine line between over- and underexplaining riddles, so let us know how we're doing!

* * *

Harley followed Whisper out of the glass doors of Nigma Corp's front lobby, unable to believe their good luck. They had used Whisper's grappling gun to climb onto the roof of the smoke—filled greenhouse dome and then another short distance onto the roof of the skyscraper itself. There was a door there that led to an elevator which ran all the way to the main lobby. No one had stopped them. Whisper's security codes still worked. Nigma hadn't seen the need to change them, she supposed, after locking herself and Whisper in a burning greenhouse 40 stories above the ground.

But he had been wrong.

"Where do you figure we'll be safe," Harley asked in a soft voice, struggling to keep her pace brisk yet apparently casual. It was hard to look nonchalant and businesslike when running for your life.

Whisper veered off the sidewalk, down a small path going around the side of the towering building. It was another garden, Harley realized, this one public and much tamer than Whisper's own. _Nigma does have a thing for aesthetics. _She found herself wondering if all the elaborate and expensive décor was a calculated front, and overcompensation for the Riddler's true nature.

"I…I'm not sure," Whisper murmured finally, stopping on the path and putting a hand to her forehead. "Nigma's either in his inner sanctum, in which case he won't notice our escape for a while, or he's already left the building on business. Either way, catching us isn't going to be his highest priority. If he suspects we're alive he'll just change the security codes and write us off unless we cause more trouble."

Harley found Whisper's assessment surprisingly reassuring. Perhaps that was why the other woman still sought shelter in the building's shadow, still seemed to feel safe meters away from the walls they'd barely escaped from…

Harley didn't feel quite the same way. "Whisper…should we go to the police now?"

Whisper gave a short, hopeless bark of a laugh. "You're an accessory to the Joker's escape and three subsequent kidnappings, including the police commissioner's family. I'm wanted for about two dozen counts of murder that I'm already on record as confessing to. _Maybe_ you could get somewhere with a plea of victimization or something, but, seriously doubt there's any way out of it for me. Especially considering how much Nigma's charmed the police force, and now he'd try to get me prosecuted for real…"

Harley grimaced at the truth of this. She'd been prepared to deal with the legal consequences of her own actions, but she had forgotten all about Whisper's…and she didn't feel the woman deserved to be held accountable for the murders. Nigma may have been less violent, but he had weilded psychological control over Whisper even more firmly than the Joker had controlled her. "Once his true colors show, they should consider you a victim," she said with a confidence she did not feel.

Whisper quickly shook her head. "They won't. I have no doubt that he's covered his tracks impeccably. He's always done so before."

Harley's mind rebelled against that. How could Nigma's true colors _not_ show, at the rate things were going? If Batman was missing in his custody, and the Joker was soon to follow…

It occurred to her that her and Whisper may very well be the only aware of Nigma's roles in either disappearance. And if what Whisper said was true, it might be up to the two of them to expose him…

Harley let out a weak laugh. "I wonder how he's going to explain the napalm in the greenhouse."

Whisper appeared not to pick up the humor in Harley's voice. She shrugged wearily. "He'll come up with something. He always does. Since both of us are still publicly missing and last scene with the Joker, who knows if the public investigators will ever even get in there." Suddenly, she lowered her head. "Harley?" she asked in a quavering voice. "Could you... could you come with me?"

Harley stared at Whisper in shock. Everything about the question rang with the loneliness of a woman who had had no family, who didn't expect anyone to be there for her… "Of course!" Harley exclaimed. "I wasn't going to leave you alone after all of this!"

Whisper nodded, and taking Harley's hand, led her to a clump of bushes completely out of sight of the sidewalk. Upon reaching their shelter, she dropped to her knees and began to cry softly.

Harley was shocked again, but she supposed she shouldn't have been. Life-saver and assassin though she may have been, Whisper had just had her world turned upside down in a way Harley couldn't imagine. She knelt beside Whisper and wrapped her arms tightly around the other woman, suddenly awash in guilt at her role in Whisper's current predicament. _First I nearly let the Joker kill her…then she betrayed her master to save me…_

"This must be awful for you," Harley murmured, feeling powerless to sympathize.

Whisper nodded, not looking up. Her sobs redoubled.

Harley cradled Whisper's head against her shoulder and stroked her long, black hair. "It'll be okay," she murmured. "It really will." And reflecting on who she was talking to, she believed it really would be.

"Will it?" Whisper's quiet response echoed Harley's earlier fears. "Do you mean…that the whole world won't become chaotic and dangerous and meaningless again?"

"Yeah," Harley said enthusiastically. "That's what I mean." She wondered at how much Nigma must have meant to Whisper, but could find no words to console her over this.

"But… but what do I have now?" Whisper stuttered, anger in her voice. "He was the center of my world. I've never had a life without Nigma, never _would_ have had a life without his…kindness…"

"You didn't depend on Nigma," Harley said firmly, and she knew it was absolutely true. It was Whisper's own competence that had rescued the two of them, _Whisper's_ competence that had taken out the majority of the ringleaders of Gotham's underworld. "You haven't depended on him for a long time. If appearances are any judge, _he_ depended on _you_."

Whisper scoffed in hopeless rebellion against that idea. "He used me because I was convenient. He was able to take quite a bit of power all by himself, and the way I was living was going to end up in my death sooner rather than later. He took me in out of…kindness. There _was_ kindness there, I could see it in his eyes. He just…lost it somewhere. And there was nothing special about me. I was just a convenient tool to keep his own hands clean, a _tool_ who wouldn't question him no matter what he told me to do."

"Well," Harley said quietly, "you're not like that anymore. You _saved_ me, against his orders. And now you've saved yourself."

Whisper was silent for a moment. Finally she raised her head and looked up, giving Harley a watery smile. "I didn't saved myself. You saved me. If I hadn't met you I never would have questioned him. If you hadn't…been you, I probably would have even let him kill you."

Harley smiled, pleased to see Whisper reasserting herself. "And do you know where I'd be without you right now?"

"Still with the Joker, still serving him..." Whisper reflected quietly, "If he'd let you live that long." She hesitated for a long moment. "Do you...do you want to go back to him?"

Harley was silent for a moment. Did she want to go back to him? No, not in a million years, she did _not_ want to be controlled and subjugated by a murderer again. But did she want to see him…she missed him. She still missed the man he had been behind bars, the man he had been occasionally in moments of respite even after the escape…

"No," she said at last. "I don't...I don't _ever_ want to be under his control again. But I don't…I don't want to see—even _think_ of him being tortured. He needs to stay behind bars, or…or be dead." Dangerous emotion bubbled in her chest, and she fervently shook her head. "Whisper, don't _ever_ let me go back to him. No matter what I say or do, _never_..."

Whisper nodded, seeming to understand. And maybe she did, Harley, reflected, if Nigma still held similar allure for her. "I promise," Whisper said firmly, "no matter what else happens to us."

Harley tightened her arms Whisper again, this time in gratitude. "Thanks." She said sincerely, then paused, supressing laughter at a sudden thought. "It's, it's almost funny. I worked for a guy who I _knew_ was a monster, and you worked for a monster, but...you didn't know."

Whisper nodded again, introspective. "I just... I can't believe it. He managed to fool everyone who ever knew him. Everyone. You know how famous he is. So many people, decieved."

Harley sat up, pulling away from the hug at last. Staying in one place for so long was making her nervous. "So where do we go?" she asked, hoping Whisper would know of more options than she did. "If the police won't have us, and our bosses certainly won't..." She shuddered, struck by another unpleasant thought. "Do you think Batman will be alright?" Harley wasn't sure she'd be able to live with herself if Gotham's hero died because of the mistakes she'd made.

Whisper shook her head. "I don't know. I'm beginning to think that Nigma wouldn't have any problem just killing Batman after he serves his purpose to lure the Joker to him. Batman has certainly gotten in his way enough." she smiled ruefully.

Harley sighed and shielder her eyes with her hand. "Isn't there...isn't there any way to get to Nigma? I'm generally the last person to condone violence, but if it's Batman and the Joker and possibly the future mayor of Gotham we're talking about here..."

Whisper closed her eyes, intensely thoughtful. "If he's baiting the Joker to come to him, he'd want to be as far away from civilization as possible...wait! The publicity barge! It wouldn't be Edward Nigma if he hadn't put a few traps in that thing. Everything he does has a double meaning."

Harley blinked and stared. "Well he certainly seems brazen enough to try that." She smiled thinly. "You know, the Joker's like that too. Double meanings, double purposes..."

"It's just that the Joker doesn't bother hiding what he is," Whisper said, an odd expression passing over her face. "What _exactly_ did Nigma say when he talked to you earlier?"

Harley winced inwardly at the unpleasant memory. "He said...he said that death was too "simple" for the Joker. He said he had a "better" plan."

"What else?" Harley could tell Whisper was probing for some detail of unknown importance to Harley.

Harley shook her head. "Just...just what I told you before. That he planned to make the Joker 'beg for death,' before the end. That...that it would help him discover the cosmic order, or something like that."

Whisper nodded, looking down. "That was never something he mentioned to me. It makes me wonder…why all those people_ really_ died."

Harley winced. "Something tells me there are a lot of things he hasn't told anyone. He must not, if so many people trust him."

As Harley watched, a lone tear fell from Whisper's face to the ground. "I... I almost wish I'd never learned any of this," she said, and for a moment her voice was near breaking.

Harley stroked Whisper's cheek where the tear had been, overpowered by compassion for the woman. "It'll be okay," she repeated. "Better than it would have been if you'd learned it later, after all this was over."

Suddenly, Whisper leaned forward and pulled Harley into a tight hug of her own. "Thank you," she murmured thickly, "thank you for everything."

Stiff with surprise at the sudden show of affection, Harley relaxed slowly. "Hey, thank you for saving _me_. Twice."

Pulling back, Whisper chuckled. "I just realized: This is the first time I've spoken you that you're not anyone's hostage."

"You know…" said Harley, grinning slightly. "You're right." She felt a wave of laughter bubbling up within her at the realization, hysteria at the irony of it all. She started laughing hard and doubled over on the ground, helpless to stop. The events of the previous days—had it really only been days?—seemed to swirl in her mind's eye, creating new juxtapositions of events that made her laugh even harder. Her own foolishness, taking pity on a man who seemed to be a victim…who turned out to be the most dangerous mass murderer Gotham had ever seen. The Joker's antics, his violent rages dissolving into delighted laughter and then back again. Whisper's face bending over her, concerned, after Harley had nearly allowed her to die. Was this how the Joker saw the world? Irony upon irony, unwilling or unable to care for any of it?

She realized abruptly that at some point her laughter had turned into tears, and she was now on the ground sobbing, her chest heaving with all the emotions she had not dared to feel. Pity, terror, pain…

Whisper was on her knees beside Harley, looking deeply concerned and more than a little disconcerted.

Returned to her senses now, Harley sat up abruptly. "I'm fine," she muttered, wiping tears stubbornly from her face. "Well no, I'm not, but the rest can wait. We've got to do something before it's too late."

Whisper nodded, looking a little uncertain but relieved at Harley's newfound resolve. "If we move quickly," she said, standing up, "we might be able to make it to the barge before it leaves. If Nigma hasn't changed the passcodes on the doors, he probably hasn't changed the authorization for his undercover cars, either…"

Harley nodded, grinning and getting to her feet. "Now _that _would be ironic."

Whisper smiled, already briskly weaving her way down the path towards the street. "I suppose it would be, yes." Abruptly, she turned on heel and hugged Harley again, planting a kiss on her cheek. "And thank you," she said, "again."

* * *

**This **scene represents a difficult point in terms of character development and relationship development. Are our girls developing well? Are they holding your interest?


	25. Chapter 25

**By: **Kagmichiru and DracoCron

**Disclaimer: **Nothing belongs to us, except possibly Whisper and some of our own interpretive work.

**Character **forecast: 100 chance of Joker and Riddler all next week, 90 chance of Gordon later in the week. High chance of explosions.

* * *

The barge was, as the papers had implied, impressive. The Joker would have estimated it to be roughly the size of a floating city block—although, knowing nothing about barges, he really couldn't say whether that was an extraordinary size for one. From what little he _did_ know about barges, he'd expected to disembark from his speedboat and climb on top of the thing—but instead he found a narrow ledge for docking, with a small door. The rest of the thing rose a good thirty feet out of the water, making climbing it impossible.

Shrugging, he stabilized the little boat with one of the trailing moorings provided and climbed out onto the ledge. He examined the door—green, of course, with a silver question mark in the middle—and put his hand on the knob tentatively.

Nothing happened.

He turned it, slowly, thinking to himself that he was either paranoid or missing something—not that the first scenario would be news to him—and stepped through into the dark passageway beyond.

The hall had a funhouse-like quality to it. The walls seemed to be cut at odd angles and curved to produce illusions of distortion. Every ten feet or so, a patch of wall would turn into a patch of mirror, yielding distorted views of any passerby who happened to glance up. The Joker paused to examine his own reflection in one of them. The prison uniform no longer had quite the desired affect, he decided, and dusted it off, loosing a choking fog of ash and dust. He coughed, chagrinned, and waved his arms to clear the dust.

Maybe green and purple was the better choice for him. He'd have to order a new suit when he got out of here.

Continuing to stroll around the corridor, he wondered if the place was meant to intimidate him. Nigma should've known better; he was the _Joker_, for God's sake. All things bizarre and warped were practically his element.

Suddenly, he stopped in his tracks as a large panel lit up on the wall beside him and a chord sounded from unseen speakers. It sounded like a madman on a synthetic piano.

He turned to face the wall segment that had lit up. It was an enormous sign, he saw, a digital screen displaying what appeared to be an enlarged version of the Gotham Times. But it didn't take much to see that the version displayed on the screen had been tampered with.

"HARLEEN QUINNZEL FOUND DEAD" the headline blared. The article read strangely:

_"Female remains believed to be those of Harleen Quinnzel, the Joker's former psychiatrist, were found today in the midst of a fire much like the one from which she __mysteriously escaped__ on Tuesday. The previous explosion, engineered by the __Joker__ himself, nearly claimed the lives of Gotham City's Police Commissioner, James Gordon, as well as his wife and two children who were being held hostage at the time."_

A picture of the Joker grinning cheerfully in a mug shot was stationed to the side of that paragraph with the caption: _"Clown Prince of Chaos."_

"_With her were the remains of another female, thought to be former Nigma Corp employee Whisper Lieng. How the two came into contact is unclear, though it is suspected that they may have met during the __Joker's__ brief capture of __Lieng__ after the raid and bombing of the Joker's headquarters."_

_Now that isn't right. _The Joker thought. had taken Whisper Lieng from the GCPD headquarters days before his own lair was raided. And according to the previous paragraph, the paper _should_ have said his headquarters self-destructed, not that they were bombed by another party. There was no reason for his name to have been repeated twice in the last sentence; they could have used "his" for the second instance. And what was with the underlining? He squinted, leaning closer to the screen, and experimentally poked the first instance of his name with one finger.

His name vanished, and a blank appeared. A small keyboard was projected to the side of the text.

"_The previous explosion, engineered by the__ himself—" _

_It was Nigma who did it. What's that nickname of his… _Into the blank he typed "Riddler."

Another chord sounded through the corridor, this one a sweet and victorious sound. "Riddler" became set in type-face, seamlessly replacing "Joker" in the sentence. To the right of the paragraph, the Joker's mug shot was replaced by Nigma's smiling image.

_Well that's an awfully elaborate way to admit to something obvious_, the Joker thought. Did Nigma really think that he wouldn't have figured it out? Then why leave the newspaper on the speedboat, reporting on the blast?

_Because that's not all there is to the message. That's a hint._

_"—they may have met during the __Joker's__ brief capture of __Lieng__ after the raid and bombing of the Joker's headquarters."_

He tapped on his name again and repeated the procedure, entering "Riddler" in its place again. Then his eyes lit up. He clicked on Lieng and typed "Quinnzel." Another victorious chord sounded. The article now read:

_"Female remains believed to be those of Harleen Quinnzel, the Joker's former psychiatrist, were found today in the midst of a fire much like the one from which she __mysteriously escaped__ on Tuesday. The previous explosion, engineered by the Riddler himself, nearly claimed the lives of Gotham City's Police Commissioner, James Gordon, as well as his wife and two children who were being held hostage at the time."_

_With her were the remains of another female, thought to be former Nigma Corp employee Whisper Lieng. How the two came into contact is unclear, though it is suspected that they may have met during the Riddler's brief capture of Quinnzel after the raid and bombing of the Joker's headquarters."_

_He's telling me what happened to Harley! Does he have her? _At this the Joker felt a strange mixture of joy and trepidation; if Nigma had Harley, that meant she was still in the game, and his joke wasn't ruined entirely. But if Nigma had anticipated that he'd see a unique value in her above his many other hostages…that implied that Nigma understood his sense of humor. He was suddenly far less certain he'd leave this barge alive.

He turned his attention back to the first paragraph, where only the words "mysteriously escaped" remained underlined. Nigma had already falsified that; the second paragraph said she'd been captured after the raid.

_"Mysteriously escaped" isn't right…and she ended up in Nigma's clutches. _He tapped on the words and entered "was rescued."

"_Female remains believed to be those of Harleen Quinnzel, the Joker's former psychiatrist, were found today in the midst of a fire much like the one from which she was rescued on Tuesday."_

The screen lit up, then went dark. Everything went dark, in fact; even the intermittent lights were extinguished.

_So that _was_ it, _the Joker thought; Nigma figured he'd rescued Harley from the explosion of his own design. But what was the relevance of her meeting Whisper, and why did the news article list them both as dead. Had Nigma really killed them both? Had someone else killed them, and this was merely Nigma's way of informing the Joker of it? Or were they not dead at all; did the message of fire and death have another meaning?

The Joker shrugged and walked ahead into the darkness. He'd find out soon enough.

* * *

**We **_think_ next week or the week after should see the end of this story. That's a weird thought, isn't it? Keep the feedback coming!


	26. Chapter 26

**By: **Kagmichiru and DracoCron

**Disclaimer: **No one belongs to us, except possibly Whisper and some of our own interpretive work.

**Okay**, I lied; not on final installment, because endings take a LONG time. Instead three more installments in rapid succession; nearly as good. :P

* * *

When at last the Joker emerged from the winding hallways, he was somewhat surprised to still be alive. He'd been expecting something devious, a death trap befitting Nigma's apparent loathing of him. But so far, the so-called Riddler had played by his own rules. This intrigued him; clearly Nigma had something more in store.

As he emerged into an empty circle of light, the floor shifted and began to move under him. He half-expected it to drop away, but instead it began to rise; the floor he was on was apparently a rising platform, and the ceiling above retracted to reveal a brilliant blue sky.

The Joker squinted. All this seemed a little grandiose. "Hello, Eddie."

The green-suited Riddler turned to face him, smiling broadly. "Ah, Joker. I'll call you that for now, in lieu of your true name. Allow me to extend my congratulations for finding me here."

"You know," the Joker observed as he folded his arms and surveyed their impressive surroundings, "you're not exactly subtle." The platform had raised him into a small clearing, surrounded on three sides by elaborately stacked explosives. Directly before him stood Nigma, and behind him an enormous glass rubix cube perched precariously close to the edge of the barge and a sheer the 30-foot drop into the lake. Within the cube a man stood, his fists balled, clad in a remarkable likeness of the Batsuit…was that really Batman? If this had been the Joker's setup, it would've been a decoy in the cube and his true valuable hostage would have been hidden safely out of sight. But Nigma was clearly no Joker, and thus far he had played by the rules.

Nigma shrugged elegantly at the Joker's quip. "I must make myself solvable, must I not?"

The Joker took a step forward, and Nigma raised his cane "A word to the wise," he said smoothly. "If you come too close to me, all I need do is press this button, and the Batman will die."

The Joker could not help himself; he doubled over in laughter. "So you actually think I came here to save Bat boy's behind, do you?"

Nigma shrugged again, but some of the certainty had left him. "Why else would you have come?"

The Joker continued giggling, slapping his thigh as he tried to regain his breath.

"If the Batman's life matters not to you, then... kill me. I am unarmed."

"Well that's not what I came for either," the Joker managed to gasp at last. "Tell me, ah, Mr. "Riddler," why do you do what you do?"

Nigma was as maddeningly composed as ever. "You like to call yourself an agent of chaos, yes? Think of me as an agent of a higher order. I do what I do to uncover the principles of the cosmic order, to find the truth of the rules and principles that govern the Universe itself." He paused. "Thus far I find them simpler than anyone's ever imagined."

The Joker took a step back and whistled in mock amazement. "_My, _but you _are_ special, aren't you?"

Nigma's expression was deadly serious. "I will not deny it."

The Joker smacked his lips, shaking his head at the other man's naivete. "Okay, so you've got this whole "cosmic order" shtick going. Just out of curiousity, what does that does that have to do with our friend here?" He jerked his thumb at the man imprisoned in the rubix cube.

"Nothing whatsoever," Nigma said curtly. "All it has to do with is you." Then he smiled. "I want to see if you can use the principles of order that you've rejected for so long, to save him."

The Joker clapped his hands together and giggled excitedly. "Well, Eddie my boy, bring it on! You know I love a challenge."

Nigma smirked and shook his head, as though at the foolishness of a child. "Then begin." He gestured to the cube. "I'm sure I don't need to give you any hints."

The Joker approached the cube, rubbing his hands together, and took a long look at its occupant. The Batsuit was metal—a strikingly good likeness of the one he'd encountered in his last encounter with the Bat. "So," he inquired delicately, "are you really Batboy, or is Eddie here missing a few marbles?"

The man within the cube merely grunted. The Joker's eyes widened at that. The grunt, the suit—it was him! It had to be.

He turned his attention to an engraved plaque at the base of the cube, inscribed with what appeared to be another riddle: "Chaos tears, order transplants. Treachery ties and burns. And with them, balance is encircled, and the burning is balanced."

"Ooh Eddie, I'm flattered! You mentioned me!"

Nigma said nothing.

"You're the one who took Harley, aren't you?" The Joker asked suddenly, looking up. The first riddle had as good as told him that, but he was not completely sure of the puzzle's honesty. If he was lucky, though, Nigma might slip up and give something away when asked the question directly…

Nigma cocked a red-brown eyebrow, but remained silent.

The Joker sighed and turned back to the inscription, muttering. "You'd better not have damaged her. I want her back after all this is over." And it _would_ end, he thought to himself, fingering the last remaining explosive charge in his pocket. Who would come out alive was another question altogether.

"To the best of my knowledge," Nigma answered suddenly, "she is dead. I felt that she was no longer necessary to keep."

The Joker froze at that. He felt something within him come dangerously close to snapping, something far too dangerous to allow—

He burst out laughing again.

When he finally managed to straighten, grinning, he asked: "So that contributed to your, ah, cosmic order, did it?"

"All things I do contribute," Nigma said cooly, although he seemed puzzled by the Joker's outburst. "It was a pity, though; she could have been a much greater help to me alive, if she'd chosen to cooperate. Now please solve the riddle."

_'Wouldn't cooperate' with him, eh? _The Joker wondered what that meant…what had he tried to get Harley to do?

He turned back to the plaque, surveying it with idle curiousity. "Well I think it's fairly obvious who "Chaos" and "Order" are. And since you've taken such an interest in our little assistants, I'm gonna assume Harley is the "torn" one and your...ah, Whisper, was it? She's "transplanted.""

Rather to his disappointment, Nigma's face was unreadable. "I will not prompt you. You have to solve it entirely yourself."

The Joker grinned eerily. "No help, hmm? Not even to save yourself the necessity of killing the Bat?"

"That is your choice entirely," Nigma sounded faintly bored. "I care nothing for him."

The Joker shrugged and glanced again at the plaque. "Well I'm tempted to lable you as "Treachery." And me, I'm assuming I'm also "burning." Does that mean the Bat's "balance?"

"The entire riddle, Joker." Nigma sounded harsh for the first time.

The Joker turned back to the cube and folded his arms, looking up at Batman contemplatively. "No," he announced. "I don't think I'm interested anymore." He turned away from the plaque and began to walk towards the edge of the barge.

Nigma raised his cane, aiming it at the Joker's retreating back. "Can you actually be so stupid as to turn your back on me?" he demanded, incredulous.

The Joker grinned and pulled the remaining explosive charge from his pocket. "I dunno, can I?"

Nigma was visibly fighting frustration now. "Or would you rather have the Batman working for me instead?"

Momentarily intrigued, the Joker cocked his head and lowered the hand that bore the explosive. "I gotta hand it to you, Eddie," he murmured, licking his lips. "You're interesting. You think you can buy the Bat?"

Nigma smirked. "Buy? Hardly. With my resources, I can easily create something that will make him more... pliable, shall we say. Even more fascinating, however, would be the effects of such a device on you…once he, with my backing, has captured you once more."

The Joker shook his head, chuckling to himself. "You have a lot to learn, you know that?"

Several things happened at once. Nigma pressed a button on the hilt of his cane, which caused the cube to be lit from within with a blue light and begin humming ominously. At the same moment, the Joker raised his hand again to toss the activated explosive charge—and was tackled from by Harley, who darted out from behind one of the fireworks stacks to cause him to fumble it. Scuffling simultaneously with him and the deadly charge, she managed to kick it overboard just in time for a bone-jarring concussion to go off, nearly toppling those on the deck of the barge.

The Joker was more pleasantly shocked than dismayed. "Harley!" triumphant at the return of his pet project, he squeezed her. She looked utterly frazzled.

Whisper had revealed herself now as well, stepping from behind the cover of the pyrotechnics now that Harley had revealed their presence. Nigma looked from one of them to the other with an expression of mild amazement. "Well, allow me to congratulate you as well, Dr. Quinnzel."

Harley looked from him to the humming cube with an expression of slightly crazed panic. "The Riddler is Burning, too," she blurted. "And Treachery is Whisper!"

Nigma pointed his cane at Whisper and spoke warningly to Harley: "This challenge is for the Joker and for him alone. Unhand him of your companion's life is forfeit,"

Harley willingly unwound herself from the Joker's embrace. "Well you're lucky I stepped in when I did; he'd have sent this whole place up in smoke!"

_It's another robot," _the Joker thought to himself, watching the Riddler's moves and his apparent lack of self-preservation. _That's why he doesn't care. Too cowardly to show up himself, even…well that's just no fun._

The cube had begun to rotate more quickly, dizzying its helpless occupant. The humming escalated into a menacing clicking.

"Make your choice, then, Joker," Nigma sounded smug as ever. "Save the Batman, or make him mine."

The Joker was not about to be so predictable. Struck by a sudden inspiration, he shoved Harley forward. "You do it, Harl. Say what you said before."

"The Joker is Chaos and Burning," she recited breathlessly. "I am Torn; Whisper is Transplant and Treachery, the Batman is Balance, and Edward Nigma is Order." Then she whirled to glare at Nigma, defiant.

Slowly, the cube's rotation stopped. One of the glass panels opened like a trap door to deposit the highly disoriented Batman onto the deck of the barge.

The look on Nigma's face was one of pure rage. "You used her... that... that was grand-scale cheating, Joker!"

The Joker seized Harley around the waist again and began dragging her towards the edge of the deck. "Well nobody ever said I play by the rules," he exclaimed, brightly.

Whisper lunged towards the two of them. "Let her go!"

Ignoring the chaos that was breaking out between the other three occupants of the barge, Nigma spoke softly to himself. "You said that I had a lot to learn, Joker…and yet you think you will escape unscathed…"

As Whisper tore Harley from the Joker's grasp, a whiplike mechanical arm shot out of the cube's open panel and seized the Joker in a vicelike grip. It retracted, pulling him back into the cube with blinding speed. He barely had time to register an expression of shock before more tentacles emerged, binding his limbs and immobilizing him completely.

Harley shrieked as she intuited the cube's true purpose. "No! _NO_." She fought against Whisper, clawing to get at the cube as though she could somehow reverse what was taking place.

Nigma turned to face the the Joker in the cube briefly. "You see, chaos is simply a word used by the ignorant to describe an order that they've not yet been able to comprehend. And to believe in it, as if it were a force, is the greatest foolishness of all.I knew your order. And now, this cube will keep you alive for a very long time. It will filter oxygen out of the air, feed you intravenously, and even dose you with my anti-aging formula. And so you will remain quiescent, and entrapped…forever." He pressed one final button, causing the floor on which the cube stood to separate from the main body of the barge. It tipped, slowly, sending the barge over the edge to sink into the lake.

Turning to look about him, Nigma found that Harley, Whisper, and Batman had gone. Perhaps they would survive; perhaps they wouldn't. But his goal for tonight was accomplished. He smiled serenely, set the timer on the barge's explosives, and took the secret exit to his small escape pod.

In a few minutes, fireworks would light up Gotham City's night sky.

* * *

**Thank **you all for your patience!


	27. Chapter 27

**By: **Kagmichiru and DracoCron

**Disclaimer: **Nothing belongs to us, except possibly Whisper and some of our own interpretive work.

**Last **real action in the story! jumps up and down in excitement

* * *

Watching the fireworks bloom from where the barge used to be, the Riddler smiled faintly to himself.

_And so it ends_. The fireworks were commemorative in more ways than the people of Gotham could have known: as of this night, the Joker had entered his personal hell, and the lives of two dangerous vigilantes (and a Harlequin?) were snuffed out. How tragic would be the morning headlines, when the public would learn of the Joker's attack on Nigma's celebratory barge after escaping Gotham County Prison; and how much _more _tragic when Nigma himself announced with deep sorrow that the Batman had been slain in a vain attempt to foil the Joker's plot. It would look, in the end, as though Batman were a hero after all.

And with him out of the way, that would be no threat to the Riddler's plans.

Struck by a sudden amusing thought, his grin widened. _It looks as though __Wayne Enterprises__ will be in a small amount of trouble, after the disappearance of its owner_. He wondered, then, how many tabloids and newspapermen would speculate that he and Batman might have been one in the same. It was an obvious enough inference…but perhaps not for the average Gothamite. Perhaps Wayne's shallow playboy façade was just too incompatible with the image of the caped crusader.

_And I will have to consult Lucius Fox about that merger. Perhaps with Bruce gone, he'll be more receptive to the offer of a generous penchant in exchange for retiring and ceding his post to me…_

He sighed contentedly as his speedboat hummed towards shore, its rotor the only noise in the serene darkness. Somewhere, Gothamites were celebrating his spectacular fireworks show, unawares that tonight their world had been changed for the better… Victory always tasted sweet, but this was better than ever before. Things were proceeding well—uncannily well, as they so often did. He had no doubt in his mission, or in the principles of the cosmic order…but still, tonight was a life-affirming night. And tomorrow a new day began for Gotham. With the mayoral election only a few weeks off…

But as he strained ahead in the darkness to see the docks, the Riddler squinted in uncertainty. Was that an observation party, gathered to watch his fireworks display? If so, explaining his presence might be difficult—especially with the tragic story he'd have to feed to the papers tomorrow morning. But no, that didn't look like a celebration…there was something decidedly wrong.

Nigma cursed inwardly as he recognized Gordon's form among the bystanders on the dock. And the others stood entirely too straight, dressed too uniformly—cops, and probably lawyers.

_How on Earth did they move so fast?_ the Riddler wondered. He had expected it to take months, at least, to wade through the paperwork and analysis of the conflicting evidence from Whisper and Cobblepot's arrests. How had they obtained a warrant for his arrest so quickly?

He sighed inwardly and hunched over the steering wheel, prepared to put on a performance of shock and horror at having narrowly escaped with his life. _Some day Gordon, you will pay for your stubborn interference…_

It was clear to all of Gotham that this was going to be one of the city's most controversial and bitterly contested trials. The mayoral candidate Edward Nigma, particularly popular with Gotham's poor, stood accused of twenty-four counts of murder and five counts of attempted murder. And the star witness against him was none other than James Gordon, the recently appointed Commissioner of Gotham's GCPD which had sustained so many losses in recent months. With the police department pitted against the people's mayor, a crowd of thousands gathered outside the courthouse on the trial's opening day, many of them bearing signs proclaiming support for one side or the other. The resulting atmosphere was an odd combination of political activism and public execution.

Fortunately, Bruce Wayne had arranged for his seat ahead of time. Not wishing to add to the spectacle, he chose a seat in the balcony, near the corner.

Nigma had changed his attire only slightly for the proceedings; his signature bowler hat was gone, lending him a more professional air, and his suit was a slightly more stylish cut than his usual fair—although it was the same shade of green. And the ever-present domino mask remained in place. Notably, there was no lawyer seated at the bench with him; he had elected, nay, _insisted_ on representing himself. Bruce was more than a little suspicious.

As Nigma was sworn in, prim and proper, followed by Gordon, who looked weary and exhausted, even the judge seemed to be waiting for something remarkable to happen. But for the time being, the trial proceedings went remarkably smoothly.

The prosecution stated its case. Evidence was inventoried, including the conflicting evidence gathered from the arrests of Whisper Lieng and Oswald Cobblepot; it was proposed that the evidence found on Cobblepot was planted on him by the Nigma Corp agent whose body was found at the scene of Cobblepot's arrest. Then, an audio recording was introduced. Bruce watched closely, but could detect no change in Nigma's expression as the recording began to play. His composure was impressive. To find out in a court of law that you were eavesdropped on during a private and incriminating moment…and yet he showed no reaction.

Bruce could not say the same for himself It was surreal to listen to Batman's gruff echo through the chamber voice, repeating what he'd said, as though it belonged to someone else. He felt his heart pound, remembering that exchange. The night he had been found out—the night his identity was exposed, and the night he almost died. How long had the tape recorder functioned? Had it been knocked out by the electrified net Nigma used to immobilize the Batsuit? Did Gordon know Batman's secret? If he did…did the district attorney know? Would that truth be revealed to the public in this courtoom today?

Nigma's condescending voice filled the courtroom, larger than life:_"Would you tolerate that slime having the run of this city if it belonged to you?"_

"_You don't seem to have any problem murdering innocents!" _Came Batman's voice, so gruff and vehement as to be almost unintelligible.

"_Innocents? What do you care about crime bosses and the hangers-on of terrorists? You can see, can you not, how if they all died, the latest victims of the Joker, martyrs to the cause of order... how they would be so much more useful to my crusade against crime than if they were alive? Their deaths would be the catalyst to allow me to explore a whole new kind of order."_

Nigma's face remained blank. _What does he have up his sleeve? _Bruce wondered.

"Don't talk like some sort of savior, Nigma," Batman's voice snarled, frightening. "You're scum who murders to enhance your own reputation!"

And the tape cut off. Bruce closed his eyes with an almost visible sigh of relief. There had been no mention of his name.

Nigma still sat with his hands folded, the very image of patience. He looked at the judge questioningly "If I may respond to the accusations brought against me? Very good. I'd like to call Police Commissioner James Gordon to the witness stand."

Standing before Gordon, Nigma was unnervingly cool and collected. "Would you repeat for the jury, please," he requested, "how you obtained this recording?"

But Gordon was also confident. "The device was left on my doorstep," he repeated clearly.

"And you were not suspicious at all of this…rather unorthodox method of delivery?"

"I didn't know what it was. I took it out to my car because I didn't want it near my family."

"And you did not fear for your own safety? Even after _two_ bombings of police department facilities?"

Gordon looked for a moment pensive. "I have had personal contact with the Batman before. He has never tried to damage me on any of these occasions."

"You have had personal contact with the Batman. How recent was this, Commissioner?"

Gordon regarded Nigma. "Well you should know," he said calmly. "If I recall, it was you who organized the whole meeting."

A murmur went up in the courtroom at that. Nigma? Meeting with the Batman? With the man who he was now being accused of trying to murder?

"Do you have any evidence for this—ah—supposed meeting, Commissioner?"

"I do not," Gordon said simply. "Unless someone on the jury recalls seeing the Bat Symbol with a peculiar alteration to it broadcast from the top of one of your buildings on the night of October fifteenth."

Nigma was not visibly angry, but he seemed to have been thrown off-balance. "Ordinarily I would object to this assertion on the grounds that it is pure speculation. However, since you are under oath and I would rather not accuse the police commissioner of committing perjury—please go on. Did it never once cross your mind to doubt the authenticity of the recording's source? Was there not a doubt in your mind that someone could have mimicked the Bat symbol on a device designed to entrap you?"

Gordon was solemn. "If there was any chance of benefitting from the information the device contained, I was willing to take the risk."

Nigma glanced, casually, out on the audience. "I wonder what your wife and children think of that." He turned back to Gordon. "Now then—is it not true that my corporation recently gifted your police department with several devices designed to mimic the vocal patterns of suspected criminals, to aid in undercover operations?"

"That is true."

"And is every single one of those devices currently accounted for within your police department?"

Gordon was unphased. "Well that would require an inventory which I do not presently have available to me. But I assure you we have strict protocol involving the use of police department property. Unless you mean to suggest that someone within the department is working with the Batman, and has managed to circumvent these rules…"

Nigma nodded in agreement. "That is exactly what I mean to suggest, Commissioner." He paused. "You have admitted to previous personal contact with the Batman, have you not?"

"Yes."

"And would you be prepared to admit that the Batman was involved in the rescue of your wife and children from the Joker's hostage situation?"

Gordon hesistated for a moment. "Yes. I admit that he participated in that."

Another murmur went up through the court room. Bruce straightened up. Was Nigma's argument actually _working_?

"And is it not concievable, Commissioner, that out of gratitude for your family's safety and your own suspicion of my role in the mob murders, you may have found it acceptable to supply the Batman with one of my voice-mimicking devices for his own "investigation?""

The jury was rapt. To everyone's surprise, Gordon dispelled the tension by laughing. "Do you honestly believe, Mr. Nigma, that I would enable a vigilante—a vigilante who's wanted for the _murder _of our previous District Attorney—to defraud me? I supplied the Batman with nothing. So unless you have proof that one of our devices is missing, there's a hole in your theory."

"Perhaps," replied Nigma with an air of faint superiority. "Perhaps not. For now, I rest my case." He dismissed Gordon from the witness stand and returned to his seat.

"And now," the prosecuting attorney announced, apparently unflapped by Nigma's display, "the prosecution would like to summon a second witness. I would like to call Doctor Harleen Quinnzel—"

The rest of his statement was lost as the room erupted into chatter. The blonde woman was entering, confident but disarmingly demure.

The Riddler half-rose from his seat at the sight of her, staring in incredulity. He twisted, then, to scan the courtroom, his eyes lighting on the viewing balcony. But he was not looking at Bruce Wayne. "You!" Nigma screamed, his face twisted in fury. "You're the one who ruined the Joker's riddle! You can't be alive—not again!"

The courthouse erupted in pandemonium and bailiffs surged forward to restrain Nigma. Suddenly, there came a shout came up from below: "He's armed!" "Call an ambulance!"

As Bruce sprang to his feet to try to offer assistance, a tall woman with dyed-red hair swept past him. The sight of her stopped him in his tracks. He had seen her before, he was sure; there was something uncannily familiar about that figure, about the way she moved and the way her long hair was swept over her shoulders…

_Could it be…?_

Suddenly something caught his eye, a splash of bright green standing out against the balcony carpet. He bent to pick it up, shielding it from the trampling feet of passersby, and stared at it in wonder.

It was a fresh sprig of ivy.

**And **that's it...it's done. There is a brief epilogue to come tomorrow, but as far as action goes...**The End.**


	28. Revised Epilogue

**Revised Epilogue**

* * *

James Gordon opened the newspaper, smiling over his morning coffee at the headline "BATMAN STILL ON THE LOOSE: POLICE HAVE NO LEADS." He had been afraid, for a full 24 hours after the explosion of Nigma's barge, that Nigma had been telling the truth and the explosion that reportedly killed the Joker had also ended the life of Batman. Batman and Bruce Wayne had both resurfaced by the following evening; but after six weeks, the Joker still had not.

Maybe he did do us a favor, Gordon mused, shuddering at the thought of the mass murderer being loose among the Gotham populous again. Even with all the criminals he'd seen, no one had every quite chilled Gordon the way that one did. And the Joker's last scheme had made the violence personal in the worst possible way.

As though beckoned by this thought, the children swept past him on their way out the door.

"Bye Dad!" Barbara proclaimed brightly, planting a brief kiss on his cheek. "I've got karate at four, remember, so don't freak out when I'm not home by three."

Gordon grinned a bit guiltily as the door slammed behind the children. Perhaps he had become a bit overprotective of them since the kidnapping. But at least he was not the only one; his wife had been at least as bad. Barbara and Jimmy were now both enrolled in self defense classes, and Barbie was taking to it—and to an interest in her father's job—like a fish to water.

_'If Batman doesn't watch out, he's going to have some competition,'_ he had told her after watching her enthusiasm begin to grow. Gordon chuckled at his little joke, and turned the page in the paper.

The articles on this page warranted a slight frown; another chemical plant had been broken into and some of its contents apparently pilfered. This time, the assailant seemed to have gone one step further; explosives had incapacitated the factory's waste disposal abilities, shutting it down for weeks at least. All of Gotham's production facilities had been rattled by the string of burgalaries, but none seemed to be able to deter them; neither could the GCPD.

He scanned the rest of the paper only briefly, and contemplated how Gotham's crime scene had changed in recent months. The mob and drug cartels were making a resurgence with the disappearance of the Riddler, as previously low-ranking members climbed into vacant positions of power. But the police had been able to do some work with the brief lull, shutting down some operations, hopefully for good.

And there were signs that vigilante activity was actually on the rise in Gotham; in some cases the vigilantes were dubious, like one particularly enthusiastic youth who had tried to bust a drug ring with a homemade bomb. The use of Batman's testimony in indicting the Riddler seemed to reinspire the imitators previously discouraged by Batman's charges of murder, possibly in an unhealthy way.

There were reports from all over the city not only of Batman sightings, but of muggings and robberies foiled Batman imitators or even a few original "masks." Most were inept and either quickly apprehended or smart enough to retire after a few dangerous exploits. Still, the trend was worrisome—more than one costumer had turned up dead after apparently trying to take on an armed criminal.

And somewhere in the back of his mind, he wondered something more. Whisper Lieng had never been re-arrested after her kidnapping by the Joker. The unofficial attitude in the GCPD was to hope that without Edward Nigma on the loose to control her, the poor woman might have fled the city and made a normal life for herself.

Harleen Quinnzel had also evaded police custody shortly after testifying in Nigma's trial. It bore all the signs of an escape planned with an outside accomplice. Having no actual record of violent crime, Quinnzel was also assumed to have fled the city and was fairly low on the GCPD's list of priorities. But he had to wonder, in a city as crazy as this one, if a couple of equally crazy women might not stick around. And who knew, a couple of female costumers had been reported…

He shook his head, finished his coffee, and grabbed his coat to head for his temporary office at the Department of Justice. On the bright side of things, Gotham was certainly the most _interesting _city in his field of work.

* * *

For any readers who might have been confused by the shortening of the epilogue, here is the reason for it: the long-awaited sequel to "City of Sorrows" is now in the works! The second scene of the epilogue was intended to wrap up the Harley/Whisper plotline, including the problem of Whisper's immortality serum; that, however, was not the original solution to the problem we'd intended. Now that we know we'll have time to write the sequel we had hoped for, that solution and the other events of the Harley/Whisper scene have been canceled.

It's only fair that we warn you readers that the Joker will not be sprung from his watery prison in this sequel; we do have plans for him eventually, but not just yet. Instead, we'll be bringing back and old friend (Doctor Jonathan Crane a.k.a. The Scarecrow), along with appearances by the Riddler and a brand-new rival, Pamela Isley. We hope you'll come with us for the ride as our plotline continues to develop.

And now, check the next chapter for a preview...


	29. Guns and Roses Preview

**Guns and Roses Foreword**

Three months after the events of "City of Sorrows" and approximately seven months after the events of _The Dark Knight_, the Joker has been taken off the streets, but new threats to Gotham continue to emerge. In the aftermath of the Riddler's incarceration, new and bolder criminal leaders are rising to the top of Gotham's underworld. At the same time, inspired by the Mob Murders, a new wave of vigilantism is sweeping the city. Not just Batman imitators, but costumed crime fighters of all sorts are hoping to restore the temporary peace induced by the Riddler's brutal methods.

Commissioner Gordon has his hands full, as usual. Jonathan Crane, the infamous Scarecrow, is still at large since his escape from the prison ferry during the first Joker's reign of terror. A brutal new drug cartel has formed in the power vacuum left behind by the Mob Murders, claiming an ever-widening swath of Gotham as its own. The new cartel is pushing a new drug--a highly addictive hallucinogen that is hooking not just the poor, but the rich as well. Bruce Wayne is among those suspected of addiction--his declining health has fueled a firestorm of media speculation.

In the meantime, Harleen Quinnzel and Whisper Lieng attempt to create new lives for themselves in the aftermath of the brutality of the Joker and the Riddler. Sandwiched between gang territory and on the run from the law, the two must turn to Harley's old schoolmate Pamela Isley.

But is Isley really the right woman to trust with the formula for immortality?

* * *

We're baaack! Expect the first chapter of Guns and Roses in approximately a week.

P.S. Yes, we know hallucinogens aren't normally addictive; who said this was an ordinary hallucinogen?


End file.
